The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1

lorable Milan-Nikita the comedian-The great Strossmayer-Religious disputes between Serbs and Roumanians-The burden of the Obrenovi?-A happy advent-Austro-Hungarian wrath-Their Montene

of eastern Serbia seem, all of them, to have assumed this custom which the Serbs call the "slava," and those inhabitants, say of Pirot, who did not consider themselves Serbs at the time of their annexation would gradually fall into line with their neighbours and select a saint, if only because the annual "slava" celebration is a day of tremendous hospitality, when the peasant is glad to squander his savings in the entertainment even of persons unknown to him. And those who are in the habi

HE MACEDON

to oscillate between the two, and it is sometimes impossible to tell whether an old Macedonian Slav document is Bulgarian or Serbian.... When we come to the ethnologists we find they have only written books which deal with certain parts of Macedonia. They have confessed that, generally speaking, it is impossible to say whether a man is a Serb, a Bulgar or a Serbo-Bulgar. These Macedonians were for centuries at such a distance from the other Slavs and were so thoroughly neglected that they lost their national consciousness, an attribute which many thousands of them, in the days of the vast, loose empires of Du?an and Simeon, never possessed. Sir Charles Eliot, in his excellent book Turkey in Europe (London, 1900), says that it is not easy to distinguish Serb and Bulgar beyond the boundaries of their respective countries. He divides the Macedonian Slavs into pure Slavs, Slavized Bulgars and pure Slavs influenced by Slavized Bulgars: "all three categories," he says, "have been subjected to a strong and often continuous Greek influence, to say nothing of the Turks and the inconspicuous Vlachs," so that in his opinion it is rash to make sharp divisions among a people who have thus acted and reacted on one another. A large proportion of the Macedonians[53] have no knowledge of the race to which their ancestors belonged; and one is brought to the conclusion that it is much wiser not to use for Macedonia the two words, Serb and Bulgar, but to say that these Slavs became either Exarchists (in which case they were commonly called Bulgars) or Patriarchists (who

CAUSED BY

nt for the priest. Now and then some one would travel to where the Serbian or the Bulgarian language could be heard in church and on his return to Ghevgeli be discontented with the Greek. This feeling was fanned by certain agitators from outside; and ultimately a Slav service was introduced, being celebrated in the same church as the Greek service and by the same priest. As he was unable to read a Slav language, the words were written for him

882. By this time the Slavs, largely owing to external pressure, were not content to have two separate schools; they were the keenest rivals, and the proprietor of the Serbian school, Risto Naumovi?, was killed for no other reason in 1883. His successor, one Be?irovi?, who is still alive, was threatened that he would be shot within twenty-four hours, but his valiant young son-who was then a pupil at the school-found the komitadji chieftain who had uttere

hey brought to bear. These methods of the enthusiastic Exarchists were altogether deplorable and succeeded in alienating not only the Patriarchist Slavs whom they freely murdered, but even in many cases the very Exarchists, who came to dislike the komitadji bands, whom they were required to shelter and to feed and to assist with a subscription to their funds. "Still more," says a Bulgarian proverb-"still more than if you have a boat on the sea or a Roumanian wife, are you certain to sleep ill if you have a property in Macedonia." As year after year went by and the komitadji men appeared to be doing very little beyon

OF THESE MAC

walking one day in Monastir, "and so long as I have work," he said, "I shall be perfectly contented." How many Macedonians ought to echo his words! At Resan I stayed at the house of an old gentleman called Lapchevi? and in Sofia I had previously met his brother, whose name was Lapchev and who was Minister of War. Until 1868 there was at Resan only a Greek school, so that the elder brother's education left him merely a Macedonian Slav, who could have become with equal facility a Serb or a Bulgar; the younger brother had the advantage of a Bulgarian school, but the disadvantage of having his Slav nationality narrowed down into that of Bulgaria. These two brothers should set an example, renounce the name of Serb and Bulgar, and call themselves simply Yugoslav. At Resan the Serbian authorities are certainly trying to smooth away these wretch

RS HAVE STIR

. "It is the best map that we know of," said Bismarck, and Kiepert's ethnographical statements were completely adopted by British scientists and diplomats at the time of the Berlin Congress. No doubt a well-equipped foreigner could obtain more exact ethnographical results in Macedonia than equally gifted Serb or Bulgar observers. But not one of the travellers whose observations Kiepert used for his map was acquainted with the Serb or the Bulgar language, nor had any one of them travelled for purposes of research; hence it is not surprising that none of them perceived that the Macedonian Slavs have no sense of nationality and that "Bulgar" is not used there as a national term. In former as well as in recent times the Macedonian Slavs have readily abandoned one name for the other, the temporary predominance of either depending solely on the conquests, political circumstances and various events, internal and external, which give rise to certain sentiments and instincts among this people, easily transforming them into Serb or Bulgar aspirations. It seems clear that Serbia's existence as an independent State for a good many decades before Bulgaria was freed would render the name of Serb more disagreeable to the Turk; it is therefore not astonishing that in Macedonia under the Turks one discarded the Serb name in favour of the Bulgar. Without dwelling upon the more or less valuable remarks which were made by priests and monks and Turkish geographers and French explorers and German doctors from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and from which we can at least deduce that the Slav inhabitants of southern Macedonia were not fanatically constant to the Bulgar name, it would appear that in the nineteenth century the earlier deliverance of Serbia and, above all, the foundation of the Exarchate caused the Bulgar name to become the more popular. The Serbs were looked upon by Turkey as a revolutionary element, while the Bulgars aimed at an independent Slav Church within the limits of the Turkish boundaries. It is unnecessary to add that after Bulgaria's deliverance and her annexation of Eastern Roumelia, and especially after the rebellious movements in Macedonia, which had the moral if not the official encouragement of the Principality, there was less eagerne

SIAN AND TURK

and five weeks after the peace signature Russia began the Turkish War, one of whose necessary antecedents was the recognition by Russia that the Austrians were not to be hampered in Bosnia-Herzegovina. (After the Treaty of Berlin had placed the two provinces under Austria's administration it is said that Andrássy, on his return from Berlin, remarked to Francis Joseph that the door of the Balkans was now open to His Majesty. But the Russian delegate, Prince Gortchakoff, had prophesied to Andrássy that Bosnia-Herzegovina would prove the Empire's grave.) One effect produced by this incursion of the Austrian eagles was a serious divergence between the Croats and the Serbs. By historic and by ethnic rights the provinces, so the Serbs argued, should be theirs when once the Turk had ceased to rule. The Croats, laying special emphasis on the religious question, were for justifying Austria's occupation. The Catholic Slav clergy, unlike the Orthodox, ranged themselves with the great Catholic Power; while Croat politicians of the school of Star?evi? invoked other historic and ethnic sanctions in their endeavour to found, under the name of "Great Croatia," a State uniting all the Yugoslav lands of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Thus the Serbs and their Croatian brothers were acutely in conflict. Never, said the Serbs, would that "Trialism" come to pass, for the Magyars would veto the formation of a Yugoslav State within the Empire, having a population roughly equal in numbers to its own. We Yugoslavs have nothing to hope for, said the Serbs, except from ourselves, and, being divided, we are ruining our common interests.... From yet another quarter was a storm-wind blowing on the Serbs. The Russian volunteers and officers had taken back with them highly unfavourable impressions as to the capabilities of the Serbian army, which they accompanied in the luckless campaign of 1876; also, in the opinion of the Pan-Slavists the Serbs had been contaminated by European civilization, whereas the Bulgars seemed, in the words of Professor Miliukoff,[58] to be the sons of an untouched, virgin soil, free from politics and ready to work, with all possible zeal for the "inner truth" of Pan-Slavism, while begging its protector to concern herself with the "outer truth." The Bulgars were, for these reasons, to have the preference in the allotment of the spoils of the Turkish War; and, owing to the conflicting demands of Russia and Prince Milan, Serbia did not declare war against Turkey until several days after the fall of Plevna, so that she could not hope that the Russians would show any special tenderness towards her national aspirations. It is difficult to see what Serbia could have hoped to gain from the elder brother, if she had been less dilatory; she gained from this intervention no vast gratitude from the younger brother. Men may still be found in Bulgarian frontier villages who were prominent there during the Serbi

PLORAB

amiliar. And of course upon his countrymen, whose fortunes he directed through years of shadow and sunshine, his hold was tremendous. "May God bless our dear old brother Nikky," says the peasant as he tastes his morning glass of rakia. There is no brilliance but a profound knowledge of human nature in this humorous old Balkan gentleman. It is not by brilliant oratory that he sways the Skup?tina, for he merely thinks aloud; slowly and haltingly, while he caresses his beautiful white beard, the words come out in a very bass voice-it is a grave and confidential talk, although a merry gleam occasionally dances in his eyes. With such homeliness does he talk that he pays no strict regard to the complications of Serbian grammar-when he appointed a very able young official of the Ministry of Education to a diplomatic post some hostile critics in the Press asserted that he did so on account of his enormous admiration for a man who had produced eight books on grammar. As a specimen of Pa?i?'s parliamentary methods we may quote from a speech that he made in answer to one by the aforementioned Tajsi?, who was an illiterate but most eloquent peasant. For three hours Tajsi? had railed against the secret fund, the 30 million dinars that were every year at the disposal of the Foreign Office. At last when Pa?i? gets up and very courteously smiles at the would-be reformer: "Well, well," says he, "as to what our friend has told us-the-how should I say?-well, it is not altogether wrong-in a way, the-what was his name?-when you examine the matter from all sides, there is-I forget the word-in a way, these non-public matters, you know-how should I say?-it is best-how shou

THE C

one of Montenegro's earliest schoolmasters, organized the intelligentsia for the purpose of obtaining a Constitution. Nikita was not yet ready to grant such a thing, and his representative who attended one of Oraovac's meetings at Podgorica inflicted upon him two grave wounds. The reformer was then expelled-the powerful intervention of one of Nikita's cousins saved his life-his mother and both his brothers, more Montenegrino, were likewise expelled and his house was bestowed upon a certain Kru?a, who lived in it for forty years. One must add, with respect to the Russian wheat, that Nikita did not sell it for cash-the wars of that period had left the land in such distress that no cash was available. And so the wheat was delivered in exchange for bonds that would some day become payable. When the wars of the seventies were over, an edict was issued, and from end to end of the country, so goes the story, men had to sell their sheep and cattle and horses, their sticks of furniture, their land itself, to meet their obligations. Meanwhile the Austrian frontiers had been closed. No selling was possible outside the land, and selling within it was only permitted to certain specified persons, agents of the Prince, and at fixed prices. The profits were enormous; the country was ruined, and from that time date the great emigrations to America, as was pointed out by Mr. Leiper the Serb-speaking Scot in his admirable contributions to the Morning Post.... Nikita loved to bestow things upon himself. A famous hero, Novak Voujo?evi?, killed seventeen Turks in one day, and when he went, in consequence of an invitation, to Petrograd, the Tzar presented him with a sword on which were the Russian crown and the Montenegrin crown in diamonds. When the old warrior came back to Cetinje, Nikita said that such a weapon could not possibly be worn by a simple man; he therefore abstracted the diamonds and gave it him with false ones in their place. Nikita could not endure criticism, but those persons, including myself, who have charged him with inhuman treatment in the case of Vladimir Tomi?, an intelligent young judge, were acting on faulty information. The tale was that Tomi?, after being incarcerated, was soused with petrol and so badly burned that he lost his reason. As a matter of fact, this neurasthenic young man-whose imprisonment was due to his having wantonly insulted the whole Royal Family-poured the petrol on himself. Eventually, when Radovi? came into office, he was released and, a few years later, he died in his native village.... The Montenegrin records are crowded wit

Yugoslav girls, in addition to the Montenegrins, gathered at Cetinje. This college was the centre from which education and modern ideas spread out to the remotest corners of Montenegro; in 1913 it was obliged to close-the Court had long been looking at it with a very jaundiced eye.... Russia, Serbia, Italy, France and even Turkey offered free education to a certain number of young Montenegrins. But only the sons of the favoured families were able to get passports to go abroad; there was scarcely anything Nikita feared as much as education.... And if one asks why no patriot could be found to kill this prince one is given two reasons, the first being that his semi-secret treaty with the Austrians provided that they should come into Montenegro if he were killed, and secondly,

AT STRO

ssful, just before and during the Great War, in setting the Catholic and Orthodox Bosniak at each other's throat, and this antagonism will endure for a while in remote districts, such as in a certain village of the Sandjak where one found, in the summer of 1919, that the Catholic chief official and his wife were compelled to dismiss their Orthodox maid, since the villagers would not allow her to continue to serve in a Catholic house. But Strossmayer's statesmanship went a long way towards breaking down these barriers. "I have had to set my face against your mission," said von Khevenhüller, the Austro-Hungarian Minister, to Father Tondini when this Italian Barnabite, in whom Strossmayer had every confidence, came to Belgrade. "It is one of our principles, inherited from Schwarzenberg and Metternich," said the Minister, "that we should exercise a sort of control over the Serbian Catholics by having them under the jurisdiction of an Austrian Bishop." When Strossmayer visited Belgrade, for the purpose of conducting confirmations, he was driven at once, amid the booming of cannon, to the royal palace. And if the negotiations were allowed to drag it was obviously not due to any Orthodox fanaticism. Talking of fanaticism, one had instances in Bosnia and in Slavonia, not long ago, of Catholic priests who discarded Strossmayer and endeavoured to get their flock to use a different pronunciation from that of the Orthodox. It was because he strove to bring them together that the great bishop was so heartily disliked in Vienna and Pest. It had been decided in 1883 that, unless he made his political submission, he was to be interned at the Trappist monastery of Banjaluka. But if he were no longer in a position to spend the great resources of the bishopric-to say nothing of the removal of his personal influence-the Cause would have suffered

TES BETWEEN SER

ania) told me, there came into a church at Tergul, near Moros-Varshahel, a woman with a basket of eggs. When she perceived that she could not understand the language that was being used she put down her basket and uttered a loud curse, "May thunder and lightning strike this church!" she cried. And after the service had begun in a church near Grosswardein the wife of a clergyman pulled the priest's beard, while other ladies tore off his robes. Nevertheless this Uniate Church continued to exist and it was natural that the Orthodox Roumanians should seek in some way to compensate themselves for their losses. They had, as we have mentioned above,[59] been given hospitality by the Serbian Church and given the use of a monastery for the education of their priests. They now sug

acerdos de Beesd

. Only one Roman Catholic religious house, he said, was founded by that French dynasty in the Banat and this was at Egres, near the Maro?, where the wife of Louis of Anjou built a church which remained Catholic and is now in ruins. The monastery of Besdin was founded in 1539 and a Serb-Slav psaltery which is kept there has, on p. 270, the following words: "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So that all people shall know when a beginning was made to build the monastery of Besdin. It was begun in the year 7058 from the creation of the world, that is 1539 from the Birth of Christ ... Joseph Milutinovi?, archimandrate, built it, and his monks and the Christians helped him. Written by me: Leontic Bogojevi?, administrator and monk." Beesd and Besdin, said the librarian, are from the same root, signifying that which has no bottom, an abyss, and the marshes in the Banat are numerous. The Beesd of the above citation is, said the librarian, a place between the rivers Temes and Berzava; Catholics were there in the fourteenth century, but the founders were Slavs. The burly archimandrate of Besdin, whose constitution had withstood twenty-seven years of marshes and mosquitoes, was extremely scornful of his adversaries' pretensions. "They wanted to prove that they built it! Not one stone, not a single stone! Then they argued that something was due to them as they had paid a part of the church taxes. We had invited them!" ... Most of the Serbs acknowledge that their monas

The pitiful dodges of the dominating Magyar minority are by this time well enough known; it was their argument that certain villages, say ten miles from a town, had to give their votes in that town, while intervening villages of other nationalities were obliged to present themselves at a booth twenty miles in another direction, because if such methods had not been employed then the more ancient and more reputable Magyar culture would have been entirely swamped by the wicked non-Magyars. Thus the three million Slovaks in Hungary were represented at Buda-Pest by three deputies.[60] "Hungary," says the delicious Aubrey Herbert, M.P., in the Oxford Hungarian Revie

ty against the Habsburgs and to make no political treaties with other Powers without the knowledge and consent of Vienna. Nor were any foreign troops or volunteers to be allowed into Serbian territory. In return for this the Emperor undertook to recognize Prince Milan as King whensoever he might be pleased to assume that dignity (as he did on March 6, 1882), to protect his dynasty from the Karageorgevi? and to favour his acquisition of as much as possible of the valley of the Vardar. The grateful Prince affirmed this Treaty (on October 24, 1881) by a still more emphatic declaration by which he appears to have constituted himself a vassal of the Emperor. This infuriated the young politicians whose radical ideas, mostly imbibed at Paris and Geneva, were not balanced by the moral and social discipline which is the fruit of an advanced civilization. As a result Serbia was given over to chaos.... When Prince Alexander of Battenberg aquiesced in his Bulgars annexing eastern Roumelia it was said that he was violating the Berlin Treaty, but it is now known[62] that, in spite of the 1

N OF THE

Slavs were naturally more inclined to proclaim themselves Bulgars. Alexander annulled the constitution, imposed that of 1888, annulled this one also, superseded all the judges of appeal as well as all the councillors of state, married his mistress (an engineer's widow) and plotted, it was said, to nominate as heir to the throne his brother-in-law, a worthless young lieutenant. Meanwhile this officer and his brother were exasperating the people of Belgrade by commanding the orchestras in cafés to play the national anthem at their entrance, and occasionally, while they drank, firing their revolvers into the air. It was something more than personal exasperation which brought about Alexander's death. Those who participated in the murder were both partisans and opponents of the dynasty. Likewise the Austro-Hungarian Government was aware of the plan: Count Goluchowski promised the conspirators that Austria would not resort to armed interference, although two army corps were held in readiness to march into Serbia. Of course it would have suited Austria much better if the king, who seemed to be emancipating himself from the veiled tutelage accepted by his father, had been dethroned and kept by the Ballplatz as a restraint on the political waywardness of any successor. Some of those who entered the palace on the night of June 10, 1903, may have had their intention

hat they were not related to him, and they sympathized with Nikita of Montenegro for having this personage as a son-in-law. The indebtedness of Serbia-she owed 450,000,000 francs, a sum which swallowed a quarter of the annual budget-the corruption of the public services, the lack of industrial development, the rudimentary state of agriculture and whatsoever else of evil which the Obrenovi? had done or left undone-everything was the fault of King Peter. A great many people were positive that Alexander had been slain by his myrmidons; for this foul de

PPY

conspicuous for his enmity to the Karageorgevi?. With regard to Serbia's international standing we have the fact that in 1899-1900 it was impossible to arrange a loan of 40 millions at Vienna even though the entire railway system was offered as a guarantee; in a few years various loans, with relatively easy terms, were contracted for amounts of 90, 110 and 150 millions. One saw the peasant, who a short time before had sold his harvest while it was still green (zeleno) to the local usurer (hence called the "Zelenac"), now demanding every day by telegram via Belgrade or Smederevo the market prices at Antwerp. In 1895 Serbia had sunk to such depths that a Dalmatian leader said openly to a German journalist that the Yugoslav idea could only be realized by Bulgaria; in 1910 the "Narodna Odbrana" (or Organization for National Defence), that was not, as the Austrians alleged, a nursery for murderers but a patriotic body-it no doubt reminded

onspicuous in attacking others than in defending themselves. The monks of the old Serbian patriarchate of Pe? were obliged to have Moslem and Albanian attendants, and it does not strike one as heroic when the monks themselves were murdered, so that the great monastery of De?ani had perforce to be served by Russian monks from Mt. Athos. Far distant, indeed, was the day when those Albanians, who called themselves, after a river, the Fani, went to the assistance of Du?an. They had been brought to a temporary standstill by the swollen waters of the Drin-"but," exclaimed one of their chieftains, "for a hero every day is good." They crossed the river and Du?an gave them the name of Mirditi, by which they are still known, "mir dit" signifying in their language "good day." Not only w

ing at ?abac a civil servant had embarked on the Austrian ship, while everybody else was crowding on to the much smaller, slower and less cleanly Serbian rival. The civil servant was being vigorously hissed, when he shouted across to his compatriots that as he was an official he had a free pass and he thought it a good plan to make the Austrians consume, simply for him, a certain amount of coal.... The young men of the intelligentsia were not idle. ?erjav for the Slovenes, Krisman for the Croats, Yovanovi? and Ne?i? for the Serbs, were eagerly at work to bring about the union of the Southern Slavs. They had some sympathizers in Bulgaria, but that country was too much oppressed by Ferdinand and the Germanic influence. Both ?erjav and Krisman were destined to become Ministers in the South Sla

HUNGARI

into power he forsook this attitude and exhibited the ordinary Magyar ruthlessness-he himself introducing a bill to make the Magyar language obligatory on Croatia's railways, and if a prospective Croat passenger did not know what name the Magyars had given to his old home and could not ask for a ticket in the Magyar language, he was told to stop where he was until he had acquired the necessary knowledge. In general, the Magyars had no reason to be dissatisfied with the sort of knowledge that the world had of them. In 1907, when a funeral pall was spread over

of schools, roads and railways, they said, "Show us first that you are patriotic subjects of the House of Habsburg." Neces

NTENEGRI

his country in this manner. The Black Mountain had always thought of Russia as all-powerful; her defeat, when they could bring themselves to realize it, was to them as if the foundations of the world were rocking; in their dazed condition they agreed that it was well to have recourse to Austria. (When the Russian Minister at Cetinje protested, some explanation was given.) The financial details of the Dubrovnik agreement are unknown, but from what one does know of Danilo it is fairly safe if we assume that the whole benef

cigarettes and drinking rakia, and talking, talking ... they would relate to one another what their ancestors had done by way of cutting Turkish noses, and unweariedly they would announce how their own blood was undiluted and heroic. If Greater Serbia was to be created it was surely they who-but Nikita, their keen-witted ruler, was not so certain. The Karageorgevi? were no longer being treated by Europe as outlaws; by his constitutional methods King Peter had not only effected vast and n

hese was Radovi?'s powerful father-in-law) who disliked the new statute which limited the Royal Family to Nikita and his children. Danilo protected this party for personal reasons. As for the third political party, that of General Martinovi?, its principal plank was its opposition to the other two parties. Mita Martinovi? himself was not much of a politician; he was a sturdy friend of Russia. Of his rivals, Lazar Miu?kevi?, a bearded, rather stout, medium-sized man, has a pious opinion of his own abilities, and is, or was, very proud of his friendship with Danilo. He need not be taken seriously, for he has no knowledge of administration, no political courage and no popular support. [During the Great War he was for a time the Premier, and after the War, when the other five ex-Premiers ranged themselves against Nikita, he stayed in Switzerland, where he tried for many months to make up his mind.] Andrija Radovi?, a middle-aged man, whose tall, athletic

nd of Grimojuri, with the water oozing into the cells, he might plead that this was precisely the same curriculum as fell to the lot, at San Juan de Ulloa, of those who incurred the displeasure of Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican President-and Diaz had been almost worshipped (till his fall) by many Europeans. When Nikita drove one afternoon with friends of his to Nik?i? a

ion, Count Aerenthal was able to gather this booty. It would, however, be an exaggeration to say that Russia-apart from the ultra-patriotic Press-was violently excited. As M. Nekludoff, the able diplomat, explains,[67] his country was annoyed not so much at the Bosnian annexation as because there was for it no quid pro quo, no free passage through the Dardanelles. Poor Serbia was

are bound to say that this principle governed her behaviour when she stage-managed in 1908 the Zagreb high-treason trial,[68] which was to drive a wedge between

ES HOSTAGES

Svetozar, a statesman whose Serbo-Croat Coalition party was, with the advent of Yugoslavia in 1918, to form the nucleus of the Democratic party. He then became for many months the all-powerful Minister of the Interior, a man with the appearance of a bull-dog in whose veins is electricity. The vehemence of his methods of centralization is supported and opposed by his countrymen with an almost equal vehemence.] ... But to return to the events of 1908 and 1909-the result of these two trials was lamentable from the Austrian point of view. More success attended her efforts in Cetinje, for Nikita was intensely roused against his son-in-law, and the European reputation of Serbia was again dragged down to the level of the day which saw the murder of Alexander and his Queen. An individual called Nasti? whom, according to Professor Friedjung, one could only touch with a pair of tongs, accused the Serbian Royal Family of attempting to blow up their picturesque relative, under whose roof, by the way, Princess Helen of Serbia, his grand-daughter, happened to be staying. The bombs were carried in an ordinary portmanteau to Kotor, where they were discovered. Those who believed that Nikita, the arch-intriguer, was us

S OF AN O

je and the mountains of Albania, while the master-weaver mitigated in his usual fashion the monotony of life in his poor capital. The Petrovi? have such a way with them that-if you do not happen to be one of their subjects-you are in danger of being disarmed. Thus when they were basking in the goodwill of Austria and when Nikita himself, in the spring of 1911, had been splen

e months before conferred upon this gentleman the second class, with diamonds of paste, and when the Austrian now told the King of his appreciation of the honour being so profound that he had ventured to replace the other diamonds with real ones-"I am enchanted," said the King, "to see that we have such a real friend in you, and I propose to grant you," said the King, as he produced another star comp

he Young Turk rule-then their families would be sheltered in Montenegro and their land, after it had been liberated, would be given independence. With the pote

e was brought about: Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Mont

der!-Let me

-I shall come

as not only handicapped by its lack of resources; the Crown Prince, who commanded a division, actually instigated a revolt among his own men. He had promised the Austrian Minister, Baron Giesl von Gieslingen, that the Montenegrin army would not enter Scutari, and the Government could only put a stop to Danilo's intrigues by invoking the aid of General Potapoff. The Turks were not wasting their time; they employed Austrian engineers to strengthen the fortifications, and thus the task had become far more difficult when finally the Montenegrin Court party availed itself of Serbian reinforcements. In more ways than one they were badly needed by the brave but ill-disciplined soldiers. "It is wonderful," they said to Major Temperley,[70] "their troops do not fire until an officer gives the word." Primitive men and a venal commander-according to Dr. Sekula Drljevi?, who was Minister of Finance and Justice, Prince Danilo is alleged to have remembered, just before his country's entrance into the War, that money could be made on the Vienna Bourse by judicious selling and, after the declaration of war, by purchasing. The professional financier who on this occasion, thanks to his knowledge of the Montenegrin royal plans, is alleged to have realized, with his friends, the sum of 140 million francs, was no less a person than Baron Rosenberg, whose subsequent operations in Paris at the beginning of the Great War and in Switzerland during the War received the close attention of the French authorities.[71] These financial methods of Danilo's did less material harm, at

d of the town after Hussein Riza Bey, the Turkish leader, had been assassinated on the threshold of Essad's house, where he had been dining, by a couple of the Pasha's men, disguised as women. Scutari was not to stay for long in Mont

IGH PO

s Mr. Devine. There is not the least doubt but that the vast majority of Montenegrins would have acted in this fashion. To some degree they had deteriorated under the example of Nikita-"A fish stinks from its head," says a Turkish proverb; but when their brother Serbs were in deadly peril all else was forgotten. And they were bewildered and suspicious when the Skup?tina was summoned, seeing that the Constitution laid it down that the declaring of war was a royal prerogative. As practically every man was thirsting for battle-after all they were Serbs and inc

in the Balkan wars or in the Great War, and yet he had formerly been so proud of such recognition that it had often been carved upon his tombstone, and when for one decoration there were two claimants a duel was frequently arranged in order to decide which was to be the recipient. But Nikita's régime of corruption and intrigue caused these marks of di

DLE OF

s Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hunga

enouncing the Serbs for throwing a spark into the powder barrel on June 28, 1914, he accounts for their conduct by writing that "it is the tradition of nomad blood to tear down ancient, noble palaces, replacing them by nomad huts." What we know is that General Potiorek, the Governor of Bosnia, who had urged Francis Ferdinand and his wife to continue their programme after the failure of the first attempt at assassination before lunch, was never invited to explain anything-unfortunately for Austria he was placed in command of the "punitive expedition" into Serbia. Other incidents on which a light may some day be thrown were the very unceremonious funeral arrangements for the murdered couple (though this may very likely have been due to the High Chamberlain's personal hatred of the Archduke), and the fact that an Imperial Commission was sent to Konopi?tě, the Archduke's Bohemian estate, to seize his papers. It was there that he had lately been confabulating with the German Emperor; and Count Berchtold had visited the place on the day after the Kaiser's departure to try to ascertain what had occurred.... It was also at Konopi?tě that Francis Ferdinand, who was threatened with hereditary madness, had shot a gamekeeper dead. Knowing that the Archduke was as good a shot as he was insignificant in horsemanship, this had excited great attention in the highest circles, coming as it did after other scenes of violence.... In contrast with all these semi-mysteries it is clear that Serbia had nothing whatever to gain by the Archduke's disappearance, and although Austria had time and again endeavo

to those who carried on a cal

ted by Serbia, the Habsburg Monarchy, which at the time of the trial had already declared war on Serbia

the accused, nevertheless that which we have before us constitutes one of the most terrible accusations against the Habsburg Monarchy. The young accused persons were not afraid to state, even behind closed doors in a barrack-room, some bitter truths concerning Austria-Hungary. One can have some idea of what they would have said in a public trial from the results of the famous trials of Zagreb and of Friedjung. All the accused persons,

rmer occasion been expelled by the police from Sarajevo? Later on, after the Belgrade police had been obliged, owing to the intervention of the Austrian Consulate, to allow him to stay in Belgrade, he returned to Saraj

ernment is not identical with an officer who, on account of other troubles with the Ministry of War, had already been removed from the active service list.[76] When the Austrian ultimatum was transmitted to the Serbian Government, Tankosi? was immediately arrested, so that his guilt and complicity might be enquired into and established. Serbia could not do more than that. But the whole Serbian people, in Serbia and out of Serbia, was declared guilty of the crime, and immediate steps were taken to carry out the sentence. The

mediately wrote[77] to him, in his indifferent French, for fear, he said, lest the intrigues conducted by the Serbs or their accomplices should precede him in capturing the President's sympathies. "In spite of their perfidy," said he, "I was the first to lend them a hand by being the first t

r and the man to whom the plot proved fatal. Monsieur Chopin, after a minute examination of the facts and of grave presumptions, believes that Serbia was to be held up to the world as having provoked the war that was to consolidate the Monarchy and satisfy the Archduke's paternal ambitions. The army man?uvres were to be in Bosnia, the Archduke was to make his ceremonial

RABLE MA

med out to the highest bidder, and so flagrant were the abuses of this system that it was not unusual for the villagers to cut down their fruit-trees in order to avoid the tax upon them, for the tax-farmer, against whom an appeal would be worse than useless, was wont to appear with gendarmes and estimate, according to his fancy, the amount of any crop.[78] Another tax very frequently imposed upon the helpless peasant was the tribute to some Albanian chief, who in return undertook to protect the village. And if the village was outside the Albanian sphere of influence it was usually obliged to have its own resident brigands, who might or might not be Albanians. Generally speaking, those villages were the least to be envied which were on the borders of Albanian territory: cattle were lifted, crops of corn or hay were carried off before they could be garnered, young men and old men were kidnapped and held to ransom; sometimes, says Mr. Brailsford, they were fettered and driven to the fields at sunrise with the cattle and were forced to work there until evening. Most of the villages in Macedonia were owned by a Turkish bey to whom the peasant was obliged to give a clear half of the harvest, besides a certain amount of labour on the bey's private farm and in his mill, as well as hewing wood for him and transporting his produce to the market without payment. It is not surprising that the Macedonian Slavs, whose labour brought them such inadequate reward, sank into very slothful habits. Thus at Monastir in 1914-1915, when

nding, since the experiences of the invaded Bulgars were generally very different from those recorded by the careful schoolmaster, Stavri Popoff, in his monograph, The Self-Defence of the Village of Ciprovci against the Serbo-Roumanian Invasion of 1913 (Berkovica, 1915). This isolated village in the mountains was defended by thirty old reservists, who possessed 100 guns and 15,000 cartridges. So pleased is their historian with the manner in which they held their own-the rocks which surround Ciprovci are so many natural fortresses-that he tells us not only the names of the thirty warriors but those of the other inhabitants who carried milk and bread to the outpost

in Macedonia were too often not the kind of men whom wisdom would have chosen; but there was as yet a general eagerness to avoid being sent to those unalluring parts. The officials left behind them such unhappy recollections that the Serbian army, advancing through Macedonia in 1918, was received, as a rule, with something less than delight. Fortunately the Yugoslav Government was able, after these events, to induce a far superior class of officials to serve in Macedonia, though I believe the scale of remuneration is no higher than in the old kingdom. Men are selected who, in addition to other qualities, speak the Turkish or Albanian of the district. "You can count on our moral and material support, on all that we now give to Turkey," said Mr. Balfour

IES OF

pils resort to them. In 1916 the same school taught Bulgarian. In 1918 the Serbian language was resumed. These changes were unfortunate for the child and still more so for the teachers, who were continually being chased away or hanged. And now at last one finds the Serbs so much in advance of what they and the Bulgars used to practise. Their ex-Bulgarian schoolmasters are mostly of Macedonian origin, so that it is not difficult for these gentlemen to give their instruction in the kindred Serbian language, using, of course, the local dialect. And we can look b

TORM

by the Bulgars to Christianity and they now requested the Bishop to undo what had been done. These days of religious intolerance are as distant as those medi?val ones in Bohemia when Roman Catholic nobles, many of them foreigners, succeeded after the Battle of the White Mountain to the estates of the decapitated Protestants and conducted themselves after the fashion of one Huerta, an ennobled tailor of Spanish origin, who drove the peasants of his district to Mass with the help of savage dogs.... In view of the strides which have been made in so short a time we shall have in Macedonia an example for the other Yugoslav lands. No longer the

TNO

g Roumanians," made their propaganda, or had it made for them. Gustav Weigand, a German professor who devoted himself very thoroughly to this people, used to wish us to believe that the Aromunes, as the Roumanians of the kingdom call their Macedonian relatives-another name to which they answer is Tsintsares-are free from all Greek blood. But this is not the case; they have become very hellenized, although it is true that there are some who call themselves Greek and who, besides having no such mixture in their veins, cannot speak a word of the Greek language. According to circumstances-and very much like the Serbo-Bulgarian Macedonians-this people, who number less than 100,000, have been accustomed to proclaim themselv

s a Czech, but as at that period (1850-1860) everything German predominated, he preferred to be a German and sent his son to German schools. Then t

nography of the Macedon

ng's excellent little bo

hority on the eastern side of the Adriatic for more than forty yea

oje Bogats

Cf. p

che-Hongrie, by Dr. Ed

eaties," in the Tim

Osterreich-Ungarns, 1879-1914, by Dr.

eminiscences, by M. N

rdians of the Ga

tinische Reise

story, Politics and War,

tic Reminiscence

ount is contained in Dr. Seton-Watson's

to say, she denounces the Serbs, who in her eyes are a very criminal people. It is a pity that Miss Durham did not confine herself to the excellent relief work she was doing the Balkans. Her description of the travels this involved is interesting. But even her account of relief wo

erbia, by H. W. V. Te

ro Inconnu, by Louis

or a secret treaty. "I will do all that Austria desires," the King is reported to have said; "for instance, I will place under her protection the kingdom of Montenegro.... For years I have aimed at this and, in spite of all that has happened [the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina], I was preparing my people for this and putting Austria in a sympathetic light." The King promised that his army (whose nu

r. These people calculated that if Austria proved successful it would be advantageous to

Südslavische Frage und d

ted according to the documents by Professor Pharos, with an

nt in Dr. Lazar Markovi?'s Serbia

ern admirers. Criticism directed against him during the Balkan wars fell on deaf ears; and the censorship to a great extent prevented the man in the street from realizing during the late War that an Allied Monarch was suspected of 'not playing the game.'" Mr. Ronald M'Neill, M.P., who loved to dance in front

, by H. N. Brailsf

ondon,