The gradual aggravation of the condition of the Turkish Empire, notably in Macedonia, the unredeemed Bulgaria, where since the insurrection of 1902-3 anarchy, always endemic, had deteriorated into a reign of terror, and, also the unmistakably growing power and spirit of Serbia since the accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty in 1903, caused uneasiness in Sofia, no less than in Vienna and Budapest. The Young Turkish revolution of July 1908, and the triumph of the Committee of Union and Progress, disarmed the critics of Turkey who wished to make the forcible introduction of reforms a pretext for their interference; but the potential rejuvenation of the Ottoman Empire which it foreshadowed indicated the desirability of rapid and decisive action. In September, after fomenting a strike on the Oriental Railway in eastern Roumelia (which railway was Turkish property), the Sofia Cabinet seized the line with a military force on the plea of political necessity. At the same time Ferdinand, with his second wife, the Protestant Princess Eleonora of Reuss, whom he had married in March of that year, was received with regal honours by the Emperor of Austria at Budapest. On October 5, 1908, at Tirnovo, the ancient capital, Ferdinand proclaimed the complete independence of Bulgaria and eastern Rumelia under himself as King (Tsar in Bulgarian), and on October 7 Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the two Turkish provinces administered by it since 1879, nominally under Turkish suzerainty.



13

The Kingdom, 1908-13

(cf. Chaps. 14, 20)

The events which have taken place in Bulgaria since 1908 hinge on the Macedonian question, which has not till now been mentioned. The Macedonian question was extremely complicated; it started on the assumption that the disintegration of Turkey, which had been proceeding throughout the nineteenth century, would eventually be completed, and the question was how in this eventuality to satisfy the territorial claims of the three neighbouring countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, claims both historical and ethnological, based on the numbers and distribution of their 'unredeemed' compatriots in Macedonia, and at the same time avoid causing the armed interference of Europe.

The beginnings of the Macedonian question in its modern form do not go farther back than 1885, when the ease with which eastern Rumelia (i.e. southern Bulgaria) threw off the Turkish yoke and was spontaneously united with the semi-independent principality of northern Bulgaria affected the imagination of the Balkan statesmen. From that time Sofia began to cast longing eyes on Macedonia, the whole of which was claimed as 'unredeemed Bulgaria', and Stambulov's last success in 1894 was to obtain from Turkey the consent to the establishment of two bishops of the Bulgarian (Exarchist) Church in Macedonia, which was a heavy blow for the Greek Patriarchate at Constantinople.

Macedonia had been envisaged by the Treaty of Berlin, article 23 of which stipulated for reforms in that province; but in those days the Balkan States were too young and weak to worry themselves or the European powers over the troubles of their co-religionists in Turkey; their hands were more than full setting their own houses in some sort of order, and it was in nobody's interest to reform Macedonia, so article 23 remained the expression of a philanthropic sentiment. This indifference on the part of Europe left the door open for the Balkan States, as soon as they had energy to spare, to initiate their campaign for extending their spheres of influence in Macedonia.

From 1894 onwards Bulgarian propaganda in Macedonia increased, and the Bulgarians were soon followed by Greeks and Serbians. The reason for this passionate pegging out of claims and the bitter rivalry of the three nations which it engendered was the following: The population of Macedonia was nowhere, except in the immediate vicinity of the borders of these three countries, either purely Bulgar or purely Greek or purely Serb; most of the towns contained a percentage of at least two of these nationalities, not to mention the Turks (who after all were still the owners of the country by right of conquest), Albanians, Tartars, Rumanians (Vlakhs), and others; the city of Salonika was and is almost purely Jewish, while in the country districts Turkish, Albanian, Greek, Bulgar, and Serb villages were inextricably confused. Generally speaking, the coastal strip was mainly Greek (the coast itself purely so), the interior mainly Slav. The problem was for each country to peg out as large a claim as possible, and so effectively, by any means in their power, to make the majority of the population contained in that claim acknowledge itself to be Bulgar, or Serb, or Greek, that when the agony of the Ottoman Empire was over, each part of Macedonia would automatically fall into the arms of its respective deliverers. The game was played through the appropriate media of churches and schools, for the unfortunate Macedonian peasants had first of all to be enlightened as to who they were, or rather as to who they were told they had got to consider themselves, while the Church, as always, conveniently covered a multitude of political aims; when those methods flagged, a bomb would be thrown at, let us say, a Turkish official by an agent provocateur of one of the three players, inevitably resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent Christians by the ostensibly brutal but really equally innocent Turks, and an outcry in the European press.

Bulgaria was first in the field and had a considerable start of the other two rivals. The Bulgars claimed the whole of Macedonia, including Salonika and all the Aegean coast (except Chalcidice), Okhrida, and Monastir; Greece claimed all southern Macedonia, and Serbia parts of northern and central Macedonia known as Old Serbia. The crux of the whole problem was, and is, that the claims of Serbia and Greece do not clash, while that of Bulgaria, driving a thick wedge between Greece and Serbia, and thus giving Bulgaria the undoubted hegemony of the peninsula, came into irreconcilable conflict with those of its rivals. The importance of this point was greatly emphasized by the existence of the Nish-Salonika railway, which is Serbia's only direct outlet to the sea, and runs through Macedonia from north to south, following the right or western bank of the river Vardar. Should Bulgaria straddle that, Serbia would be economically at its mercy, just as in the north it was already, to its bitter cost, at the mercy of Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless, Bulgarian propaganda had been so effectual that Serbia and Greece never expected they would eventually be able to join hands so easily and successfully as they afterwards did.

The then unknown quantity of Albania was also a factor. This people, though small in numbers, was formidable in character, and had never been effectually subdued by the Turks. They would have been glad to have a boundary contiguous with that of Bulgaria (with whom they had no quarrel) as a support against their hereditary enemies, Serbs in the north and Greeks in the south, who were more than inclined to encroach on their territory. The population of Macedonia, being still under Turkish rule, was uneducated and ignorant; needless to say it had no national consciousness, though this was less true of the Greeks than of the Slavs. It is the Slav population of Macedonia that has engendered so much heat and caused so much blood to be spilt. The dispute as to whether it is rather Serb or Bulgar has caused interminable and most bitter controversy. The truth is that it was neither the one nor the other, but that, the ethnological and linguistic missionaries of Bulgaria having been first in the field, a majority of the Macedonian Slavs had been so long and so persistently told that they were Bulgars, that after a few years Bulgaria could, with some truth, claim that this fact was so.

Macedonia had been successively under Greek, Bulgar, and Serb, before Turkish, rule, but the Macedonian Slavs had, under the last, been so cut off both from Bulgars and Serbs, that ethnologically and linguistically they did not develop the characteristics of either of these two races, which originally belonged to the same southern Slav stock, but remained a primitive neutral Slav type. If the Serbs had been first in the field instead of the Bulgars, the Macedonian Slavs could just as easily have been made into Serbs, sufficiently plausibly to convince the most knowing expert. The well-known recipe for making a Macedonian Slav village Bulgar is to add -ov or -ev (pronounced -off, -yeff) on to the names of all the male inhabitants, and to make it Serb it is only necessary to add further the syllable -ich, -ov and -ovich being respectively the equivalent in Bulgarian and Serbian of our termination -son, e. g. Ivanov in Bulgarian, and Jovanovit in Serbian = Johnson.

In addition to these three nations Rumania also entered the lists, suddenly horrified at discovering the sad plight of the Vlakh shepherds, who had probably wandered with unconcern about Macedonia with their herds since Roman times. As their vague pastures could not possibly ever be annexed to Rumania, their case was merely used in order to justify Rumania in claiming eventual territorial compensation elsewhere at the final day of reckoning. Meanwhile, their existence as a separate and authentic nationality in Turkey was officially recognized by the Porte in 1906.

The stages of the Macedonian question up to 1908 must at this point be quite briefly enumerated. Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two 'most interested powers', who as far back as the eighteenth century had divided the Balkans into their respective spheres of interest, east and west, came to an agreement in 1897 regarding the final settlement of affairs in Turkey; but it never reached a conclusive stage and consequently was never applied. The Macedonian chaos meanwhile grew steadily worse, and the serious insurrections of 1902-3, followed by the customary reprisals, thoroughly alarmed the powers. Hilmi Pasha had been appointed Inspector-General of Macedonia in December 1902, but was not successful in restoring order. In October 1903 the Emperor Nicholas II and the Emperor of Austria, with their foreign ministers, met at Muerzsteg, in Styria, and elaborated a more definite plan of reform known as the Muerzsteg programme, the drastic terms of which had been largely inspired by Lord Lansdowne, then British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; the principal feature was the institution of an international gendarmerie, the whole of Macedonia being divided up into five districts to be apportioned among the several great powers. Owing to the procrastination of the Porte and to the extreme complexity of the financial measures which had to be elaborated in connexion with this scheme of reforms, the last of the negotiations was not completed, nor the whole series ratified, until April 1907, though the gendarmerie officers had arrived in Macedonia in February 1904.

At this point again it is necessary to recall the position in regard to this question of the various nations concerned. Great Britain and France had no territorial stake in Turkey proper, and did their utmost to secure reform not only in the vilayets of Macedonia, but also in the realm of Ottoman finance. Italy's interest centred in Albania, whose eventual fate, for geographical and strategic reasons, could not leave it indifferent. Austria-Hungary's only care was by any means to prevent the aggrandizement of the Serb nationality and of Serbia and Montenegro, so as to secure the control, if not the possession, of the routes to Salonika, if necessary over the prostrate bodies of those two countries which defiantly barred Germanic progress towards the East. Russia was already fatally absorbed in the Far Eastern adventure, and, moreover, had, ever since the war of 1878, been losing influence at Constantinople, where before its word had been law; the Treaty of Berlin had dealt a blow at Russian prestige, and Russia had ever since that date been singularly badly served by its ambassadors to the Porte, who were always either too old or too easy-going. Germany, on the other hand, had been exceptionally fortunate or prudent in the choice of its representatives. The general trend of German diplomacy in Turkey was not grasped until very much later, a fact which redounds to the credit of the German ambassadors at Constantinople. Ever since the triumphal journey of William II to the Bosphorus in 1889, German influence, under the able guidance of Baron von Radowitz, steadily increased. This culminated in the regime of the late Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, who was ambassador from 1897 to 1912. It was German policy to flatter, support, and encourage Turkey in every possible way, to refrain from taking part with the other powers in the invidious and perennial occupation of pressing reforms on Abdul Hamid, and, above all, to give as much pocket-money to Turkey and its extravagant ruler as they asked for. Germany, for instance, refused to send officers or to have a district assigned it in Macedonia in 1904, and declined to take part in the naval demonstration off Mitylene in 1905. This attitude of Germany naturally encouraged the Porte in its policy of delay and subterfuge, and Turkey soon came to look on Germany as its only strong, sincere, and disinterested friend in Europe. For the indefinite continuance of chaos and bloodshed in Macedonia, after the other powers had really braced themselves to the thankless task of putting the reforms into practice, Germany alone was responsible.

The blow which King Ferdinand had inflicted on the prestige of the Young Turks in October 1908, by proclaiming his independence, naturally lent lustre to the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. Serbia, baffled by the simultaneous Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and maddened by the elevation of Bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom (its material progress had hitherto been discounted in Serbian eyes by the fact that it was a mere vassal principality), seemed about to be crushed by the two iron pots jostling it on either side. Its international position was at that time such that it could expect no help or encouragement from western Europe, while the events of 1909 (cf. p. 144) showed that Russia was not then in a position to render active assistance. Greece, also screaming aloud for compensation, was told by its friends amongst the great powers that if it made a noise it would get nothing, but that if it behaved like a good child it might some day be given Krete. Meanwhile Russia, rudely awakened by the events of 1908 to the real state of affairs in the Near East, beginning to realize the growth of German influence at Constantinople, and seeing the unmistakable resuscitation of Austria-Hungary as a great power, made manifest by the annexation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, temporarily reasserted its influence in Bulgaria. From the moment when Baron Aehrenthal announced his chimerical scheme of an Austrian railway through the Sandjak of Novi Pazar in January 1908— everybody knows that the railway already built through Serbia along the Morava valley is the only commercially remunerative and strategically practicable road from Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest to Salonika and Constantinople—Russia realized that the days of the Muerzsteg programme were over, that henceforward it was to be a struggle between Slav and Teuton for the ownership of Constantinople and the dominion of the Near East, and that something must be done to retrieve the position in the Balkans which it was losing. After Baron Aehrenthal, in January 1909, had mollified the Young Turks by an indemnity, and thus put an end to the boycott, Russia in February of the same year liquidated the remains of the old Turkish war indemnity of 1878 still due to itself by skilfully arranging that Bulgaria should pay off its capitalized tribute, owed to its ex-suzerain the Sultan, by very easy instalments to Russia instead.

The immediate effects of the Young Turk revolution amongst the Balkan States, and the events, watched benevolently by Russia, which led to the formation of the Balkan League, when it was joyfully realized that neither the setting-up of parliamentary government, nor even the overthrow of Abdul Hamid, implied the commencement of the millennium in Macedonia and Thrace, have been described elsewhere (pp. 141, 148). King Ferdinand and M. Venezelos are generally credited with the inception and realisation of the League, though it was so secretly and skilfully concerted that it is not yet possible correctly to apportion praise for the remarkable achievement. Bulgaria is a very democratic country, but King Ferdinand, owing to his sagacity, patience, and experience, and also thanks to his influential dynastic connexions and propensity for travel, has always been virtually his own foreign minister; in spite of the fact that he is a large feudal Hungarian landlord, and has temperamental leanings towards the Central European Empires, it is quite credible that King Ferdinand devoted all his undeniable talents and great energy to the formation of the League when he saw that the moment had come for Bulgaria to realize its destiny at Turkey's expense, and that, if the other three Balkan States could be induced to come to the same wise decision, it would be so much the better for all of them. That Russia could do anything else than whole-heartedly welcome the formation of the Balkan League was absolutely impossible. Pan-Slavism had long since ceased to be the force it was, and nobody in Russia dreamed of or desired the incorporation of any Balkan territory in the Russian Empire. It is possible to control Constantinople without possessing the Balkans, and Russia could only rejoice if a Greco-Slavonic league should destroy the power of the Turks and thereby make impossible the further advance of the Germanic powers eastward.

That Russia was ever in the least jealous of the military successes of the league, which caused such gnashing of teeth in Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, is a mischievous fiction, the emptiness of which was evident to any one who happened to be in Russia during the winter of 1912-13.

The years 1908 to 1912 were outwardly uneventful in Bulgaria, though a great deal of quiet work was done in increasing the efficiency of the army, and the material prosperity of the country showed no falling off. Relations with the other Balkan States, especially with Serbia and Montenegro, improved considerably, and there was ample room for such improvement. This was outwardly marked by frequent visits paid to each other by members of the several royal families of the three Slavonic kingdoms of the Balkans. In May 1912 agreements for the eventual delimitation of the provinces to be conquered from Turkey in the event of war were signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, and Bulgaria and Greece. The most controversial district was, of course, Macedonia. Bulgaria claimed central Macedonia, with Monastir and Okhrida, which was the lion's share, on ethnical grounds which have been already discussed, and it was expected that Greece and Serbia, by obtaining other acquisitions elsewhere, would consent to have their territories separated by the large Bulgarian wedge which was to be driven between them. The exact future line of demarcation between Serbian and Bulgarian territory was to be left to arbitration. The possible creation of an independent Albania was not contemplated.

In August 1912 the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Ferdinand's arrival in Bulgaria was celebrated with much rejoicing at the ancient capital of Tirnovo, and was marred only by the news of the terrible massacre of Bulgars by Turks at Kochana in Macedonia; this event, however, opportune though mournful, tended considerably to increase the volume of the wave of patriotism which swept through the country. Later in the same month Count Berchtold startled Europe with his 'progressive decentralization' scheme of reform for Macedonia. The manner in which this event led to the final arrangements for the declaration of war on Turkey by the four Balkan States is given in full elsewhere (cf. p. 151).

The Bulgarian army was fully prepared for the fray, and the autumn manoeuvres had permitted the concentration unobserved of a considerable portion of it, ready to strike when the time came. Mobilisation was ordered on September 30, 1912. On October 8 Montenegro declared war on Turkey. On October 13 Bulgaria, with the other Balkan States, replied to the remonstrances of Russia and Austria by declaring that its patience was at length exhausted, and that the sword alone was able to enforce proper treatment of the Christian populations in European Turkey. On October 17 Turkey, encouraged by the sudden and unexpected conclusion of peace with Italy after the Libyan war, declared war on Bulgaria and Serbia, and on October 18 King Ferdinand addressed a sentimental exhortation to his people to liberate their fellow-countrymen, who were still groaning under the Crescent.

The number of Turkish troops opposing the Bulgarians in Thrace was about 180,000, and they had almost exactly the same number wherewith to oppose the Serbians in Macedonia; for, although Macedonia was considered by the Turks to be the most important theatre of war, yet the proximity of the Bulgarian frontier to Constantinople made it necessary to retain a large number of troops in Thrace. On October 19 the Bulgarians took the frontier town of Mustafa Pasha. On October 24 they defeated the Turks at Kirk-Kilisse (or Lozengrad), further east. From October 28 to November 2 raged the terrific battle of Lule-Burgas, which resulted in a complete and brilliant victory of the Bulgarians over the Turks. The defeat and humiliation of the Turks was as rapid and thorough in Thrace as it had been in Macedonia, and by the middle of November the remains of the Turkish army were entrenched behind the impregnable lines of Chataldja, while a large garrison was shut up in Adrianople, which had been invested by the end of October. The Bulgarian army, somewhat exhausted by this brilliant and lightning campaign, refrained from storming the lines of Chataldja, an operation which could not fail to involve losses such as the Bulgarian nation was scarcely in a position to bear, and on December 3 the armistice was signed. The negotiations conducted in London for two months led, however, to no result, and on February 3, 1913, hostilities were resumed. These, for the Bulgarians, resolved themselves into the more energetic prosecution of the siege of Adrianople, which had not been raised during the armistice. To their assistance Serbia, being able to spare troops from Macedonia, sent 50,000 men and a quantity of heavy siege artillery, an arm which the Bulgarians lacked. On March 26, 1913, the fortress surrendered to the allied armies.

The Conference of London, which took place during the spring of that year, fixed the new Turco-Bulgarian boundary by drawing the famous Enos-Midia line, running between these two places situated on the shores respectively of the Aegean and the Black Sea. This delimitation would have given Bulgaria possession of Adrianople. But meanwhile Greece and especially Serbia, which latter country had been compelled to withdraw from the Adriatic coast by Austria, and was further precluded from ever returning there by the creation of the independent state of Albania, determined to retain possession of all that part of Macedonia, including the whole valley of the Vardar with its important railway, which they had conquered, and thus secure their common frontier. In May 1913 a military convention was concluded between them, and the Balkan League, the relations between the members of which had been becoming more strained ever since January, finally dissolved. Bulgaria, outraged by this callous disregard of the agreements as to the partition of Macedonia signed a year previously by itself and its ex-allies, did not wait for the result of the arbitration which was actually proceeding in Russia, but in an access of indignation rushed to arms.

This second Balkan war, begun by Bulgaria during the night of June 30, 1913, by a sudden attack on the Serbian army in Macedonia, resulted in its undoing. In order to defeat the Serbs and Greeks the south-eastern and northern frontiers were denuded of troops. But the totally unforeseen happened. The Serbs were victorious, defeating the Bulgars in Macedonia, the Turks, seeing Thrace empty of Bulgarian troops, re-occupied Adrianople, and the Rumanian army, determined to see fair play before it was too late, invaded Bulgaria from the north and marched on Sofia. By the end of July the campaign was over and Bulgaria had to submit to fate.

By the terms of the Treaty of Bucarest, which was concluded on August 10, 1913, Bulgaria obtained a considerable part of Thrace and eastern Macedonia, including a portion of the Aegean coast with the seaport of Dedeagach, but it was forced to 'compensate' Rumania with a slice of its richest province (the districts of Dobrich and Silistria in north-eastern Bulgaria), and it lost central Macedonia, a great part of which it would certainly have been awarded by Russia's arbitration. On September 22, 1913, the Treaty of Constantinople was signed by Bulgaria and Turkey; by its terms Turkey retained possession of Adrianople and of a far larger part of Thrace than its series of ignominious defeats in the autumn of 1912 entitled it to.

In the fatal quarrel between Bulgaria and Serbia which caused the disruption of the Balkan League, led to the tragic second Balkan war of July 1913, and naturally left behind the bitterest feelings, it is difficult to apportion the blame. Both Serbia and Bulgaria were undoubtedly at fault in the choice of the methods by which they sought to adjust their difference, but the real guilt is to be found neither in Sofia nor in Belgrade, but in Vicuna and Budapest. The Balkan League barred the way of the Germanic Powers to the East; its disruption weakened Bulgaria and again placed Serbia at the mercy of the Dual Monarchy. After these trying and unremunerative experiences it is not astonishing that the Bulgarian people and its ambitious ruler should have retired to the remote interior of their shell.

* * * * *

Explanation of Serbian orthography

c = ts c = ch (as in church) ć = " " " but softer s = sh z = zh (as z in azure) gj = g (as in George) j = y



SERBIA



14

The Serbs under Foreign Supremacy, 650-1168

The manner of the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula, of that of the Bulgars, and of the formation of the Bulgarian nationality has already been described (cf. p. 26). The installation of the Slavs in the lands between the Danube, the Aegean, and the Adriatic was completed by about A.D. 650. In the second half of the seventh century the Bulgars settled themselves in the eastern half of the peninsula and became absorbed by the Slavs there, and from that time the nationality of the Slavs in the western half began to be more clearly defined. These latter, split up into a number of tribes, gradually grouped themselves into three main divisions: Serbs (or Serbians), Croats (or Croatians), and Slovenes. The Serbs, much the most numerous of the three, occupied roughly the modern kingdom of Serbia (including Old Serbia and northern Macedonia), Montenegro, and most of Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia; the Croats occupied the more western parts of these last three territories and Croatia; the Slovenes occupied the modern Carniola and southern Carinthia. Needless to say, none of these geographical designations existed in those days except Dalmatia, on the coast of which the Latin influence and nomenclature maintained itself. The Slovenes, whose language is closely akin to but not identical with Serbian (or Croatian), even to-day only number one and a half million, and do not enter into this narrative, as they have never played any political role in the Balkan peninsula.

The Serbs and the Croats were, as regards race and language, originally one people, the two names having merely geographical signification. In course of time, for various reasons connected with religion and politics, the distinction was emphasized, and from a historical point of view the Serbo-Croatian race has always been divided into two. It is only within the last few years that a movement has taken place, the object of which is to reunite Serbs and Croats into one nation and eventually into one state. The movement originated in Serbia, the Serbs maintaining that they and the Croats are one people because they speak the same language, and that racial and linguistic unity outweighs religious divergence. A very large number of Croats agree with the Serbs in this and support their views, but a minority for long obstinately insisted that there was a racial as well as a religious difference, and that fusion was impossible. The former based their argument on facts, the latter theirs on prejudice, which is notoriously difficult to overcome. Latterly the movement in favour of fusion grew very much stronger among the Croats, and together with that in Serbia resulted in the Pan-Serb agitation which, gave the pretext for the opening of hostilities in July 1914.

The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, jug, pronounced yug, = south in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croats, and also includes Slovenes; it is only used with reference to the Bulgarians from the point of view of philology (the group of South Slavonic languages including Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; the East Slavonic, Russian; and the West Slavonic, Polish and Bohemian).

In the history of the Serbs and Croats, or of the Serbo-Croatian race, several factors of a general nature have first to be considered, which have influenced its whole development. Of these, the physical nature of the country in which they settled, between the Danube and Save and the Adriatic, is one of the most important. It is almost everywhere mountainous, and though the mountains themselves never attain as much as 10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the whole country with an intricate network and have always formed an obstacle to easy communication between the various parts of it. The result of this has been twofold. In the first place it has, generally speaking, been a protection against foreign penetration and conquest, and in so far was beneficial. Bulgaria, further east, is, on the whole, less mountainous, in spite of the Balkan range which stretches the whole length of it; for this reason, and also on account of its geographical position, any invaders coming from the north or north-east, especially if aiming at Constantinople or Salonika, were bound to sweep over it. The great immemorial highway from the north-west to the Balkan peninsula crosses the Danube at Belgrade and follows the valley of the Morava to Nish; thence it branches off eastwards, going through Sofia and again crossing all Bulgaria to reach Constantinople, while the route to Salonika follows the Morava southwards from Nish and crosses the watershed into the valley of the Vardar, which flows into the Aegean. But even this road, following the course of the rivers Morava and Vardar, only went through the fringe of Serb territory, and left untouched the vast mountain region between the Morava and the Adriatic, which is really the home of the Serb race.

In the second place, while it has undoubtedly been a protection to the Serb race, it has also been a source of weakness. It has prevented a welding together of the people into one whole, has facilitated the rise of numerous political units at various times, and generally favoured the dissipation of the national strength, and militated against national organization and cohesion. In the course of history this process has been emphasized rather than diminished, and to-day the Serb race is split up into six political divisions, while Bulgaria, except for those Bulgars claimed as 'unredeemed' beyond the frontier, presents a united whole. It is only within the last thirty years, with the gradual improvement of communications (obstructed to an incredible extent by the Austro-Hungarian government) and the spread of education, that the Serbs in the different countries which they inhabit have become fully conscious of their essential identity and racial unity.

No less important than the physical aspect of their country on the development of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the middle of it from south to north there had been drawn a line of division more than two centuries before their arrival. Artificial boundaries are proverbially ephemeral, but this one has lasted throughout the centuries, and it has been baneful to the Serbs. This dividing line, drawn first by the Emperor Diocletian, has been described on p. 14; at the division of the Roman Empire into East and West it was again followed, and it formed the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly the same as the present political boundary between Montenegro and Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory. The Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is difficult to be accurate.

The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the Bulgars in the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present political frontier between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north from the mouth of the river Timok on the southern bank of the Danube and going southwards slightly east of Pirot, is ethnographically approximately correct till it reaches the newly acquired and much-disputed territories in Macedonia, and represents fairly accurately the line that has divided the two nationalities ever since they were first differentiated in the seventh century. In the confused state of Balkan politics in the Middle Ages the political influence of Bulgaria often extended west of this line and included Nish and the Morava valley, while at other times that of Serbia extended east of it. The dialects spoken in these frontier districts represent a transitional stage between the two languages; each of the two peoples naturally considers them more akin to its own, and resents the fact that any of them should be included in the territory of the other. Further south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the Turkish conquest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in the times of Simeon, Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian, especially during the height of Serbian power in the fourteenth century, while intermittently it had been a province of the Greek Empire, which always claimed it as its own. On historical grounds, therefore, each of the three nations can claim possession of Macedonia. From an ethnographic point of view the Slav population of Macedonia (there were always and are still many non-Slav elements) was originally the same as that in the other parts of the peninsula, and probably more akin to the Serbs, who are pure Slavs, than to the Slavs of Bulgaria, who coalesced with their Asiatic conquerors. In course of time, however, Bulgarian influences, owing to the several periods when the Bulgars ruled the country, began to make headway. The Albanians also (an Indo-European or Aryan race, but not of the Greek, Latin, or Slav families), who, as a result of all the invasions of the Balkan peninsula, had been driven southwards into the inaccessible mountainous country now known as Albania, began to spread northwards and eastwards again during the Turkish dominion, pushing back the Serbs from the territory where they had long been settled. During the Turkish dominion neither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia, and the Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all been pure Slavs, like the Serbs, then been several times under Bulgar, and finally, under Serb influence, were left to themselves, and the process of differentiation between Serb and Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the Macedonian Slavs would have become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further development of the Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap. 13).

The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east, where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they were the Greeks and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river Save and on the west by the Adriatic. They were split up into a number of tribes, each of which was headed by a chief called in Serbian zupan and in Greek archōn. Whenever any one of these managed, either by skill or by good fortune, to extend his power over a few of the neighbouring districts he was termed veliki (=great) zupan. From the beginning of their history, which is roughly put at A.D. 650, until A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign domination. Their suzerains were nominally always the Greek emperors, who had 'granted' them the land they had taken, and whenever the emperor happened to be energetic and powerful, as were Basil I (the Macedonian, 867-86), John Tzimisces (969-76), Basil II (976-1025), and Manuel Comnenus (1143-80), the Greek supremacy was very real. At those times again when Bulgaria was very powerful, under Simeon (893-927), Samuel (977-1014), and John Asen II (1218-41), many of the more easterly and southerly Serbs came under Bulgarian rule, though it is instructive to notice that the Serbs themselves do not recognize the West Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of Samuel to have been a Bulgarian state. The Bulgars, however, at no time brought all the Serb lands under their sway.

Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned, some Serb princeling would try to form a political state on a more ambitious scale, but the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the Serbs reverted to their favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst themselves. Such wore the attempts of Caslav, who had been made captive by Simeon of Bulgaria, escaped after his death, and ruled over a large part of central Serbia till 960, and later of Bodin, whose father, Michael, was even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII; Bodin formed a state near the coast, in the Zeta river district (now Montenegro), and ruled there from 1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the country peopled by the Serbs was split into a number of tiny principalities always at war with one another. Generally speaking, this country gradually became divided into two main geographical divisions: (1) the Pomorje, or country by the sea, which included most of the modern Montenegro and the southern halves of Hercegovina and Dalmatia, and (2) the Zagorje, or country behind the hills, which included most of the modern Bosnia, the western half of the modern kingdom of Serbia, and the northern portions of Montenegro and Hercegovina, covering all the country between the Pomorje and the Save; to the north of the Pomorje and Zagorje lay Croatia. Besides their neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and west played an important part in Serbian history even in those early days.

Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power of the Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a great impression on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, kral or korol, is derived directly from his name), and his son Louis conquered the Serbs settled in the country between the rivers Save and Drave. This is commemorated in the name of the mass of hill which lies between the Danube and the Save, in eastern Slavonia, and is to this day known as Fruska Gora, or French Hill. The Serbs and Bulgars fought against the Franks, and while the Bulgars held their own, the Serbs were beaten, and those who did not like the rule of the new-comers had to migrate southwards across the Save; at the same time the Serbs between the rivers Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were subjected by the Bulgars. With the arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth century, a wall was raised between the Serbs and central and western Europe on land. Croatia and Slavonia (between the Save and the Drave) were gradually drawn into the orbit of the Hungarian state, and in 1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia was absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of that country ever since. Hungary, aiming at an outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected most of Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily growing in power throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had secured control of all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part of the coast. All the cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic.

In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped themselves into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which had been Caslav's centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian state (this district, with the town of Ras as its centre, included the south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and what was the Turkish sandjak or province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on the coast (the modern Montenegro); and (3) Bosnia, so called after the river Bosna, which runs through it. Bosnia, which roughly corresponded to the modern province of that name, became independent in the second half of the tenth century, and was never after that incorporated in the Serbian state. At times it fell under Hungarian influence; in the twelfth century, during the reign of Manuel Comnenus, who was victorious over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all other Serb territories, had to acknowledge the supremacy of Constantinople.

It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied territory which, while the Church was still one, was divided between two dioceses, Italy and Dacia, and when the Church itself was divided, in the eleventh century, was torn apart between the two beliefs. The dividing line between the jurisdictions of Rome and Constantinople ran from north to south through Bosnia, but naturally there has always been a certain vagueness about the extent of their respective jurisdictions. In later years the terms Croat and Roman Catholic on the one hand, and Serb and Orthodox on the other, became interchangeable. Hercegovina and eastern Bosnia have always been predominantly Orthodox, Dalmatia and western Bosnia predominantly Roman Catholic. The loyalty of the Croatians to Austria-Hungary has been largely owing to the influence of Roman Catholicism.

During the first centuries of Serbian history Christianity made slow progress in the western half of the Balkan peninsula. The Dalmatian coast was always under the influence of Rome, but the interior was long pagan. It is doubtful whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf. chap. 5) actually passed through Serb territory, but in the tenth century their teachings and writings were certainly current there. At the time of the division of the Churches all the Serb lands except the Dalmatian coast, Croatia, and western Bosnia, were faithful to Constantinople, and the Greek hierarchy obtained complete control of the ecclesiastical administration. The elaborate organisation and opulent character of the Eastern Church was, however, especially in the hands of the Greeks, not congenial to the Serbs, and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Bogomil heresy (cf. chap, 6), a much more primitive and democratic form of Christianity, already familiar in the East as the Manichaean heresy, took hold of the Serbs' imagination and made as rapid and disquieting progress in their country as it had already done in the neighbouring Bulgaria; inasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teaching to be socialistic, subversive, and highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical supremacy of Constantinople, all of which indeed it was, adherence to it became amongst the Serbs a direct expression of patriotism.



15

The Rise and Fall of the Serbian Empire and the Extinction of Serbian Independence, 1168-1496

From 1168 the power of the Serbs, or rather of the central Serb state of Raska, and the extent of its territory gradually but steadily increased. This was outwardly expressed in the firm establishment on the throne of the national Nemanja dynasty, which can claim the credit of having by its energy, skill, and good fortune fashioned the most imposing and formidable state the Serb race has ever known. This dynasty ruled the country uninterruptedly, but not without many quarrels, feuds, and rivalries amongst its various members, from 1168 until 1371, when it became extinct.

There were several external factors which at this time favoured the rise of the Serbian state. Byzantium and the Greek Empire, to which the Emperor Manuel Comnenus had by 1168 restored some measure of its former greatness and splendour, regaining temporary control, after a long war with Hungary, even over Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, after this date began definitively to decline, and after the troublous times of the fourth crusade (1204), when for sixty years a Latin empire was established on the Bosphorus, never again recovered as a Christian state the position in the Balkan peninsula which it had so long enjoyed. Bulgaria, too, after the meteoric glory of its second empire under the Asen dynasty (1186-1258), quite went to pieces, the eastern and northern parts falling under Tartar, the southern under Greek influence, while the western districts fell to Serbia. In the north, on the other hand, Hungary was becoming a dangerous and ambitious neighbour. During the thirteenth century, it is true, the attention of the Magyars was diverted by the irruption into and devastation of their country by their unwelcome kinsmen from Asia, the Tartars, who wrought great havoc and even penetrated as far as the Adriatic coast. Nevertheless Hungary was always a menace to Serbia; Croatia, Slavonia, and the interior of Dalmatia, all purely Serb territories, belonged to the Hungarian crown, and Bosnia was under the supremacy of the Magyars, though nominally independent.

The objects of the Magyars were twofold—to attain the hegemony of the Balkan peninsula by conquering all the still independent Serb territories, and to bring the peninsula within the pale of Rome. They were not successful in either of these objects, partly because their wars with the Serbian rulers always failed to reach a decision, partly because their plans conflicted with those of the powerful Venetian republic. The relations between Venice and Serbia were always most cordial, as their ambitions did not clash; those of Venice were not continental, while those of Serbia were never maritime. The semi-independent Slavonic city-republic of Ragusa (called Dubrovnik in Serbian) played a very important part throughout this period. It was under Venetian supremacy, but was self-governing and had a large fleet of its own. It was the great place of exchange between Serbia and western Europe, and was really the meeting-place of East and West. Its relations with Serbia were by no means always peaceful; it was a Naboth's vineyard for the rulers and people of the inland kingdom, and it was never incorporated within their dominions. Ragusa and the other cities of the Dalmatian coast were the home during the Middle Ages of a flourishing school of Serbian literature, which was inspired by that of Italy. The influence of Italian civilization and of the Italian Church was naturally strong in the Serb province, much of which was under Venetian rule; the reason for this was that communication by sea with Italy was easier and safer than that by land with Serbia. The long, formidable ranges of limestone mountains which divide the Serbian interior from the Adriatic in almost unbroken and parallel lines have always been a barrier to the extension of Serb power to the coast, and an obstacle to free commercial intercourse. Nevertheless Ragusa was a great trade centre, and one of the factors which most contributed to the economic strength of the Serbian Empire.

The first of the Nemanja dynasty was Stephen, whose title was still only Veliki Źupan; he extended Serb territory southwards at the expense of the Greeks, especially after the death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180. He also persecuted the Bogomils, who took refuge in large numbers in the adjacent Serb state of Bosnia. Like many other Serbian rulers, he abdicated in later life in favour of his younger son, Stephen, called Nemanjie (= Nemanya's son), and himself became a monk (1196), travelling for this purpose to Mount Athos, the great monastic centre and home of theological learning of the Eastern Church. There he saw his youngest son, who some years previously had also journeyed thither and entered a monastery, taking the name of Sava.

It was the custom for every Serbian ruler to found a sort of memorial church, for the welfare of his own soul, before his death, and to decorate and endow it lavishly. Stephen and his son together superintended the erection in this sense of the church and monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos, which became a famous centre of Serbian church life. Stephen died shortly after the completion of the building in 1199, and was buried in it, but in 1207 he was reinterred in the monastery of Studenica, in Serbia, also founded by him.

The reign of Stephen Nernanjić (1196-1223) opened with a quarrel between him and his elder brother, who not unnaturally felt he ought to have succeeded his father; the Bulgarians profited by this and seized a large part of eastern Serbia, including Belgrade, Nish, Prizren, and Skoplje. This, together with the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204, alarmed the Serbs and brought about a reconciliation between the brothers, and in 1207 Sava returned to Serbia to organise the Church on national lines. In 1219 he journeyed to Nicaea and extracted from the Emperor Theodore Lascaris, who had fallen on evil days, the concession for the establishment of an autonomous national Serbian Church, independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Sava himself was at the head of the new institution. In 1220 he solemnly crowned his brother King (Kralj) of Serbia, the natural consequence of his activities in the previous year. For this reason Stephen Nemanjić is called 'The First-Crowned'. He was succeeded in 1223 by his son Stephen Radoslav, and he in turn was deposed by his brother Stephen Vladislav in 1233. Both these were crowned by Sava, and Vladislav married the daughter of Tsar John Asen II, under whom Bulgaria was then at the height of her power. Sava journeyed to Palestine, and on his return paid a visit to the Bulgarian court at Tirnovo, where he died in 1236. His body was brought to Serbia and buried in the monastery of Milesevo, built by Vladislav. This extremely able churchman and politician, who did a great deal for the peaceful development of his country, was canonized and is regarded as the patron saint of Serbia.

The reign of Vladislav's son and successor, Stephen Uros I (1242-76), was characterized by economic development and the strengthening of the internal administration. In external affairs he made no conquests, but defeated a combination of the Bulgarians with Ragusa against him, and after the war the Bulgarian ruler married his daughter. In his wars against Hungary he was unsuccessful, and the Magyars remained in possession of a large part of northern Serbia. In 1276 he was deposed by his son, Stephen Dragutin, who in his turn, after an unsuccessful war against the Greeks, again masters of Constantinople since 1261, was deposed and succeeded by his brother, Stephen Uros II, named Milutin, in 1282. This king ruled from 1282 till 1321, and during his reign the country made very great material progress; its mineral wealth especially, which included gold and silver mines, began to be exploited. He extended the boundaries of his kingdom in the north, making the Danube and the Save the frontier. The usual revolt against paternal authority was made by his son Stephen, but was unsuccessful, and the rebel was banished to Constantinople.

It was the custom of the Serbian kings to give appanages to their sons, and the inevitable consequence of this system was the series of provincial rebellions which occurred in almost every reign. When the revolt succeeded, the father (or brother) was granted in his turn a small appanage. In this case it was the son who was exiled, but he was recalled in 1319 and a reconciliation took place. Milutin died in 1321 and was succeeded by his son, Stephen Uros III, who reigned till 1331. He is known as Stephen Decanski, after the memorial church which he built at Decani in western Serbia. His reign was signalized by a great defeat of the combined Bulgarians and Greeks at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330. The following year his son, Stephen Dusan, rebelled against him and deposed him. Stephen Dusan, who reigned from 1331 till 1355, was Serbia's greatest ruler, and under him the country reached its utmost limits. Provincial and family revolts and petty local disputes with such places as Ragusa became a thing of the past, and he undertook conquest on a grand scale. Between 1331 and 1344 he subjected all Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, and Epirus. He was careful to keep on good terms with Ragusa and with Hungary, then under Charles Robert. He married the sister of the Bulgarian ruler, and during his reign Bulgaria was completely under Serbian supremacy. The anarchy and civil war which had become perennial at Constantinople, and the weakening of the Greek Empire in face of the growing power of the Turks, no doubt to some extent explain the facility and rapidity of his conquests; nevertheless his power was very formidable, and his success inspired considerable alarm in western Europe. This was increased when, in 1345, he proclaimed his country an empire. He first called together a special Church council, at which the Serbian Church, an archbishopric, whose centre was then at Peć (in Montenegro, Ipek in Turkish), was proclaimed a Patriarchate, with Archbishop Joannice as Patriarch; then this prelate, together with the Bulgarian Patriarch, Simeon, and Nicholas, Archbishop of Okhrida, crowned Stephen Tsar of the Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks. Upon this the Patriarch of Constantinople gave himself the vain satisfaction of anathematizing the whole of Serbia, as a punishment for this insubordination.

In 1353 the Pope, Innocent VI, persuaded King Louis of Hungary to undertake a crusade against Serbia in the name of Catholicism, but Stephen defeated him and re-established his frontier along the Save and Danube. Later he conquered the southern half of Dalmatia, and extended his empire as far north as the river Cetina. In 1354 Stephen Dusan himself approached the Pope, offering to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy, if he would support him against the Hungarians and the Turks. The Pope sent him an embassy, but eventually Stephen could not agree to the papal conditions, and concluded an alliance, of greater practical utility, with the Venetians. In 1355, however, he suddenly died, at the age of forty-six, and thus the further development and aggrandisement of his country was prematurely arrested.

Stephen Dusan made a great impression on his contemporaries, both by his imposing personal appearance and by his undoubted wisdom and ability. He was especially a great legislator, and his remarkable code of laws, compiled in 1349 and enlarged in 1354, is, outside his own country, his greatest title to fame. During Stephen Dusan's reign the political centre of Serbia, which had for many years gradually tended to shift southwards towards Macedonia, was at Skoplje (Ueskueb in Turkish), which he made his capital. Stephen Dusan's empire extended from the Adriatic in the west to the river Maritsa in the east, from the Save and Danube in the north to the Aegean; it included all the modern kingdoms of Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and most of Greece, Dalmatia as far north as the river Cetina, as well as the fertile Morava valley, with Nish and Belgrade—the whole eastern part of Serbia, which had for long been under either Bulgar or Magyar control. It did not include the cities of Salonika or Ragusa, nor any considerable part of the modern kingdom of Bulgaria, nor Bosnia, Croatia, North Dalmatia, nor Slavonia (between the Save and Drave), ethnologically all purely Serb lands. From the point of view of nationality, therefore, its boundaries were far from ideal.

Stephen Dusan was succeeded by his son, known as Tsar Uros, but he was as weak as his father had been strong. Almost as soon as he succeeded to the throne, disorders, rebellions, and dissensions broke out and the empire rapidly fell to pieces. With Serbia, as with Bulgaria, the empire entirely hinged on the personality of one man, and when he was gone chaos returned. Such an event for Serbia at this juncture was fatal, as a far more formidable foe than the ruler's rebellious relations was advancing against it. The Turkish conquests were proceeding apace; they had taken Gallipoli in 1354 and Demotika and Adrianople in 1361. The Serbs, who had already had an unsuccessful brush with the advance guard of the new invaders near Demotika in 1351, met them again on the Maritsa river in 1371, and were completely defeated. Several of the upstart princes who had been pulling Stephen Dusan's empire to pieces perished, and Tsar Uros only survived the battle of the Maritsa two months; he was unmarried, and with him died the Nemanja dynasty and the Serbian Empire.

After this disaster the unity of the Serbian state was completely destroyed, and it has never since been restored in the same measure.

That part of the country to the south of Skoplje fell completely under Turkish control; it was here that the famous national hero, Marko Kraljević (or King's son), renowned for his prowess, ruled as a vassal prince and mercenary soldier of the Turks; his father was one of the rebel princes who fell at the battle of the river Maritsa in 1371. North of Skoplje, Serbia, with Krusevac as a new political centre, continued to lead an independent but precarious existence, much reduced in size and glory, under a native ruler, Prince Lazar; all the conquests of Stephen Dusan were lost, and the important coastal province of Zeta, which later developed into Montenegro, had broken away and proclaimed its autonomy directly after the death of Tsar Uros.

In 1375 a formal reconciliation was effected with the Patriarch of Constantinople; the ban placed on the Serbian Church in 1352 was removed and the independence of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (Ipek) recognised. Meanwhile neither Greeks, Bulgars, nor Serbs were allowed any peace by the Turks.

In 1389 was fought the great battle of Kosovo Polje, or the Field of Blackbirds, a large plain in Old Serbia, at the southern end of which is Skoplje. At this battle Serbian armies from all the Serb lands, including Bosnia, joined together in defence of their country for the last time. The issue of the battle was for some time in doubt, but was decided by the treachery and flight at the critical moment of one of the Serb leaders, Vuk Branković, son-in-law of Prince Lazar, with a large number of troops. Another dramatic incident was the murder of Sultan Murad in his tent by another Serbian leader, Milos Obilić, who, accused of treachery by his own countrymen, vowed he would prove his good faith, went over to the Turks and, pretending to be a traitor, gained admission to the Sultan's presence and proved his patriotism by killing him. The momentary dismay was put an end to by the energetic conduct of Bayezid, son of Murad, who rallied the Turkish troops and ultimately inflicted total defeat on the Serbians. From the effects of this battle Serbia never recovered; Prince Lazar was captured and executed; his wife, Princess Milica, had to give her daughter to Bayezid in marriage, whose son thus ultimately claimed possession of Serbia by right of inheritance. Princess Milica and her son Stephen continued to live at Krusevac, but Serbia was already a tributary of Turkey. In the north, Hungary profited by the course of events and occupied Belgrade and all northern Serbia, but in 1396 the Turks defeated the Magyars severely at the battle of Nikopolis, on the Danube, making the Serbs under Stephen fight on the Turkish side. Stephen also had to help Sultan Bajazet against the Tartars, and fought at the battle of Angora, in 1402, when Tamerlane captured Bayezid.

After Stephen returned to Serbia he made an alliance with Hungary, which gave him back Belgrade and northern Serbia; it was at this time (1403) that Belgrade first became the capital, the political centre having in the course of fifty years moved from the Vardar to the Danube. The disorders which followed the defeat of Bayezid gave some respite to the Serbs, but Sultan Murad II (1421-51) again took up arms against him, and invaded Serbia as far as Krusevac.

At the death of Stephen (Lazarević), in 1427, he was succeeded as Despot by his nephew, George Branković; but the Sultan, claiming Serbia as his own, immediately declared war on him. The Serbian ruler had to abandon Belgrade to the Magyars, and Nish and Krusevac to the Turks. He then built and fortified the town of Smederevo (or Semendria) lower down on the Danube, in 1428, and made this his capital. He gave his daughter in marriage to the Sultan, but in spite of this war soon broke out again, and in 1441 the Turks were masters of nearly the whole of Serbia. Later George Branković made another alliance with Hungary, and in 1444, with the help of John Hunyadi, defeated the Turks and liberated the whole of Serbia as far as the Adriatic, though he remained a tributary of the Sultan. The same year, however, the Magyars broke the treaty of peace just concluded with the Turks, and marched against them under their Polish king, Ladislas; this ended in the disastrous battle of Varna, on the Black Sea, where the king lost his life. In 1451 Sultan Murad II died and was succeeded by the Sultan Mohammed. In 1453 this sultan captured Constantinople (Adrianople had until then been the Turkish capital); in 1456 his armies were besieging Belgrade, but were defeated by John Hunyadi, who, unfortunately for the Serbs, died of the plague shortly afterwards. George Branković died the same year, and at his death general disorder spread over the country. The Turks profited by this, overran the whole of Serbia, and in 1459 captured Smederevo, the last Serbian stronghold.

Meanwhile Bosnia had been for nearly a hundred years enjoying a false security as an independent Serb kingdom. Its rulers had hitherto been known by the title of Ban, and were all vassals of the King of Hungary; but in 1377 Ban Tvrtko profited by the embarrassments of his suzerain in Poland and proclaimed himself king, the neighbouring kingdom of Serbia having, after 1371, ceased to exist, and was duly crowned in Saint Sava's monastery of Milesevo. The internal history of the kingdom was even more turbulent than had been that of Serbia. To the endemic troubles of succession and alternating alliances and wars with foreign powers were added those of confession. Bosnia was always a no man's land as regards religion; it was where the Eastern and Western Churches met, and consequently the rivalry between them there was always, as it is now, intense and bitter. The Bogomil heresy, too, early took root in Bosnia and became extremely popular; it was the obvious refuge for those who did not care to become involved in the strife of the Churches. One of the kings of Bosnia, Stephen Thomas, who reigned from 1444 till 1461, was himself a Bogomil, and when at the insistence of the Pope and of the King of Hungary, whose friendship he was anxious to retain, he renounced his heresy, became ostensibly a Roman Catholic, and began to persecute the Bogomils, he brought about a revolution. The rebels fled to the south of Bosnia, to the lands of one Stephen, who sheltered them, proclaimed his independence of Bosnia, and on the strength of the fact that Saint Sava's monastery of Milesevo was in his territory, announced himself Herzog, or Duke (in Serbian Herceg, though the real Serb equivalent is Vojvoda) of Saint Sava, ever since when (1448) that territory has been called Hercegovina. In spite of many promises, neither the Pope nor the King of Hungary did anything to help Bosnia when the Turks began to invade the country after their final subjection of Serbia in 1459. In 1463 they invaded Bosnia and pursued, captured, and slew the last king; their conquest of the country was complete and rapid. A great exodus of the Serb population took place to the south, west, and north; but large numbers, especially of the landowning class, embraced the faith of their conquerors in order to retain possession of their property. In 1482 a similar fate befell Hercegovina. Albania had already been conquered after stubborn resistance in 1478. There remained only the mountainous coastal province of Zeta, which had been an independent principality ever since 1371. Just as inland Serbia had perished between the Turkish hammer and the Hungarian anvil, so maritime Serbia was crushed between Turkey and Venice, only its insignificance and inaccessibility giving it a longer lease of independent life. Ivan Crnojević, one of the last independent rulers of Zeta, who had to fly to Italy in 1480, abandoning his capital, Zabljak, to the Turks, returned in 1481, when the death of Sultan Mohammed temporarily raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and founded Cetinje and made it his capital. His son George, who succeeded him and ruled from 1490 till 1496, is famous as having set up the first Serbian printing-press there. Its activities were naturally not encouraged by the Turkish conquest, but it was of great importance to the national Serbian Church, for which books were printed with it.

In 1496, Venice having wisely made peace with the Sultan some years previously, this last independent scrap of Serb territory was finally incorporated in the Turkish dominions. At the end of the fifteenth century the Turks were masters of all the Serb lands except Croatia, Slavonia, and parts of Dalmatia, which belonged to Hungary, and the Dalmatian coast and islands, which were Venetian. The Turkish conquest of Serbia, which began in 1371 at the battle of the Maritsa, and was rendered inevitable by the battle of Kosovo Polje, in 1389, thus took a hundred and twenty-five years to complete.



16

The Turkish Dominion, 1496-1796

The lot of the Serbs under Turkish rule was different from that of their neighbours the Bulgars; and though it was certainly not enviable, it was undoubtedly better. The Turks for various reasons never succeeded in subduing Serbia and the various Serb lands as completely as they had subdued, or rather annihilated, Bulgaria. The Serbs were spread over a far larger extent of territory than were the Bulgars, they were further removed from the Turkish centre, and the wooded and mountainous nature of their country facilitated even more than in the case of Bulgaria the formation of bands of brigands and rebels and militated against its systematic policing by the Turks. The number of centres of national life, Serbia proper, Bosnia, Hercogovina, and Montenegro, to take them in the chronological order of their conquest by the Turks, had been notoriously a source of weakness to the Serbian state, as is still the case to-day, but at the same time made it more difficult for the Turks to stamp out the national consciousness. What still further contributed to this difficulty was the fact that many Serbs escaped the oppression of Turkish rule by emigrating to the neighbouring provinces, where they found people of their own race and language, even though of a different faith. The tide of emigration flowed in two directions, westwards into Dalmatia and northwards into Slavonia and Hungary. It had begun already after the final subjection of Serbia proper and Bosnia by the Turks in 1459 and 1463, but after the fall of Belgrade, which was the outpost of Hungary against the Turks, in 1521, and the battle of Mohacs, in 1526, when the Turks completely defeated the Magyars, it assumed great proportions. As the Turks pushed their conquests further north, the Serbs migrated before them; later on, as the Turks receded, large Serb colonies sprang up all over southern Hungary, in the Banat (the country north of the Danube and east of the Theiss), in Syrmia (or Srem, in Serbian, the extreme eastern part of Slavonia, between the Save and the Danube), in Backa (the country between the Theiss and Danube), and in Baranya (between the Danube and the Drave). All this part of southern Hungary and Croatia was formed by the Austrians into a military borderland against Turkey, and the Croats and immigrant Serbs were organized as military colonists with special privileges, on the analogy of the Cossacks in southern Russia and Poland. In Dalmatia the Serbs played a similar role in the service of Venice, which, like Austria-Hungary, was frequently at war with the Turks. During the sixteenth century Ragusa enjoyed its greatest prosperity; it paid tribute to the Sultan, was under his protection, and never rebelled. It had a quasi monopoly of the trade of the entire Balkan peninsula. It was a sanctuary both for Roman Catholic Croats and for Orthodox Serbs, and sometimes acted as intermediary on behalf of its co-religionists with the Turkish authorities, with whom it wielded great influence. Intellectually also it was a sort of Serb oasis, and the only place during the Middle Ages where Serbian literature was able to flourish.

Montenegro during the sixteenth century formed part of the Turkish province of Scutari. Here, as well as in Serbia proper, northern Macedonia (known after the removal northwards of the political centre, in the fourteenth century, as Old Serbia), Bosnia, and Hercegovina, the Turkish rule was firmest, but not harshest, during the first half of the sixteenth century, when the power of the Ottoman Empire was at its height. Soon after the fall of Smederevo, in 1459, the Patriarchate of Peć (Ipek) was abolished, the Serbian Church lost its independence, was merged in the Greco-Bulgar Archbishopric of Okhrida (in southern Macedonia), and fell completely under the control of the Greeks. In 1557, however, through the influence of a Grand Vizier of Serb nationality, the Patriarchate of Peć was revived. The revival of this centre of national life was momentous; through its agency the Serbian monasteries were restored, ecclesiastical books printed, and priests educated, and more fortunate than the Bulgarian national Church, which remained under Greek management, it was able to focus the national enthusiasms and aspirations and keep alive with hope the flame of nationality amongst those Serbs who had not emigrated.

Already, in the second half of the sixteenth century, people began to think that Turkey's days in Europe were numbered, and they were encouraged in this illusion by the battle of Lepanto (1571). But the seventeenth century saw a revival of Turkish power; Krete was added to their empire, and in 1683 they very nearly captured Vienna. In the war which followed their repulse, and in which the victorious Austrians penetrated as far south as Skoplje, the Serbs took part against the Turks; but when later the Austrians were obliged to retire, the Serbs, who had risen against the Turks at the bidding of their Patriarch Arsen III, had to suffer terrible reprisals at their hands, with the result that another wholesale emigration, with the Patriarch at its head, took place into the Austro-Hungarian military borderland. This time it was the very heart of Serbia which was abandoned, namely, Old Serbia and northern Macedonia, including Peć and Prizren. The vacant Patriarchate was for a time filled by a Greek, and the Albanians, many of whom were Mohammedans and therefore Turcophil, spread northwards and eastwards into lands that had been Serb since the seventh century. From the end of the seventeenth century, however, the Turkish power began unmistakably to wane. The Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) left the Turks still in possession of Syrmia (between the Danube and Save) and the Banat (north of the Danube), but during the reign of the Emperor Charles VI their retreat was accelerated. In 1717 Prince Eugen of Savoy captured Belgrade, then, as now, a bulwark of the Balkan peninsula against invasion from the north, and by the Treaty of Passarowitz (Pozarevac, on the Danube), in 1718, Turkey not only retreated definitively south of the Danube and the Save, but left a large part of northern Serbia in Austrian hands. By the same treaty Venice secured possession of the whole of Dalmatia, where it had already gained territory by the Treaty of Curlowitz in 1699.

But the Serbs soon found out that alien populations fare little better under Christian rule, when they are not of the same confession as their rulers, than under Mohammedan. The Orthodox Serbs in Dalmatia suffered thenceforward from relentless persecution at the hands of the Roman Catholics. In Austria-Hungary too, and in that part of Serbia occupied by the Austrians after 1718, the Serbs discovered that the Austrians, when they had beaten the Turks largely by the help of Serbian levies, were very different from the Austrians who had encouraged the Serbs to settle in their country and form military colonies on their frontiers to protect them from Turkish invasion. The privileges promised them when their help had been necessary were disregarded as soon as their services could be dispensed with. Austrian rule soon became more oppressive than Turkish, and to the Serbs' other woes was now added religious persecution. The result of all this was that a counter-emigration set in and the Serbs actually began to return to their old homes in Turkey. Another war between Austria-Hungary and Turkey broke out in 1737, in which the Austrians were unsuccessful. Prince Eugen no longer led them, and though the Serbs were again persuaded by their Patriarch, Arsen IV, to rise against the Turks, they only did so half-heartedly. By the Treaty of Belgrade, in 1739, Austria had to withdraw north of the Save and Danube, evacuating all northern Serbia in favour of the Turks. From this time onwards the lot of the Serbs, both in Austria-Hungary and in Turkey, went rapidly from bad to worse. The Turks, as the power of their empire declined, and in return for the numerous Serb revolts, had recourse to measures of severe repression; amongst others was that of the final abolition of the Patriarchate of Pee in 1766, whereupon the control of the Serbian Church in Turkey passed entirely into the hands of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The Austrian Government similarly, perceiving now for the first time the elements of danger which the resuscitation of the Serbian nationality would contain for the rule of the Hapsburgs, embarked on a systematic persecution of the Orthodox Serbs in southern Hungary and Slavonia. During the reign of Maria Theresa (1740-80), whose policy was to conciliate the Magyars, the military frontier zone was abolished, a series of repressive measures was passed against those Serbs who refused to become Roman Catholics, and the Serbian nationality was refused official recognition. The consequence of this persecution was a series of revolts which were all quelled with due severity, and finally the emigration of a hundred thousand Serbs to southern Russia, where they founded New Serbia in 1752-3.

During the reigns of Joseph II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-2) their treatment at the hands of the Magyars somewhat improved. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Montenegro began to assume greater importance in the extremely gradual revival of the national spirit of the Serbs. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it had formed part of the Turkish dominions, though, thanks to the inaccessible nature of its mountain fastnesses, Turkish authority was never very forcibly asserted. It was ruled by a prince-bishop, and its religious independence thus connoted a certain secular freedom of thought if not of action. In the seventeenth century warlike encounters between the Turks and the Montenegrins increased in frequency, and the latter tried to enlist the help of Venice on their side but with indifferent success. The fighting in Montenegro was often rather civil in character, being caused by the ill-feeling which existed between the numerous Montenegrins who had become Mohammedans and those who remained faithful to their national Church. In the course of the eighteenth century the role which fell to Montenegro became more important. In all the other Serb countries the families which naturally took a leading part in affairs were either extinct or in exile, as in Serbia, or had become Mohammedan, and therefore to all intents and purposes Turkish, as in Bosnia and Hercegovina. Ragusa, since the great earthquake in 1667, had greatly declined in power and was no longer of international importance. In Montenegro, on the other hand, there had survived both a greater independence of spirit (Montenegro was, after all, the ancient Zeta, and had always been a centre of national life) and a number of at any rate eugenic if not exactly aristocratic Serb families; these families naturally looked on themselves and on their bishop as destined to play an important part in the resistance to and the eventual overthrow of the Turkish dominion. The prince-bishop had to be consecrated by the Patriarch of Peć, and in 1700 Patriarch Arsen III consecrated one Daniel, of the house (which has been ever since then and is now still the reigning dynasty of Montenegro) of Petrović-Njegos, to this office, after he had been elected to it by the council of notables at Cetinje. Montenegro, isolated from the Serbs in the north, and precluded from participating with them in the wars between Austria and Turkey by the intervening block of Bosnia, which though Serb by nationality was solidly Mohammedan and therefore pro-Turkish, carried on its feuds with the Turks independently of the other Serbs. But when Peter the Great initiated his anti-Turkish policy, and, in combination with the expansion of Russia to the south and west, began to champion the cause of the Balkan Christians, he developed intercourse with Montenegro and laid the foundation of that friendship between the vast Russian Empire and the tiny Serb principality on the Adriatic which has been a quaint and persistent feature of eastern European politics ever since. This intimacy did not prevent the Turks giving Montenegro many hard blows whenever they had the time or energy to do so, and did not ensure any special protective clauses in favour of the mountain state whenever the various treaties between Russia and Turkey were concluded. Its effect was rather psychological and financial. From the time when the Vladika (= Bishop) Daniel first visited Peter the Great, in 1714, the rulers of Montenegro often made pilgrimages to the Russian capital, and were always sure of finding sympathy as well as pecuniary if not armed support. Bishops in the Orthodox Church are compulsorily celibate, and the succession in Montenegro always descended from uncle to nephew. When Peter I Petrović-Njegos succeeded, in 1782, the Patriarchate of Peć was no more, so he had to get permission from the Austrian Emperor Joseph II to be consecrated by the Metropolitan of Karlovci (Carlowitz), who was then head of the Serbian national Church.

About the same time (1787) an alliance was made between Russia and Austria-Hungary to make war together on Turkey and divide the spoils between them. Although a great rising against Turkey was organised at the same time (1788) in the district of Sumadija, in Serbia, by a number of Serb patriots, of whom Kara-George was one and a certain Captain Koca, after whom the whole war is called Kocina Krajina (=Koca's country), another, yet the Austrians were on the whole unsuccessful, and on the death of Joseph II, in 1790, a peace was concluded between Austria and Turkey at Svishtov, in Bulgaria, by which Turkey retained the whole of Bosnia and Serbia, and the Save and Danube remained the frontier between the two countries. Meanwhile the Serbs of Montenegro had joined in the fray and had fared better, inflicting some unpleasant defeats on the Turks under their bishop, Peter I. These culminated in two battles in 1796 (the Montenegrins, not being mentioned in the treaty of peace, had continued fighting), in which the Turks were driven back to Scutari. With this triumph, which the Emperor Paul of Russia signalized by decorating the Prince-Bishop Peter, the independence of the modern state of Montenegro, the first Serb people to recover its liberty, was de facto established.



17

The Liberation of Serbia under Kara-George (1804-13) and Milos Obrenović (1815-30): 1796-1830

The liberation of Serbia from the Turkish dominion and its establishment as an independent state were matters of much slower and more arduous accomplishment than were the same processes in the other Balkan countries. One reason for this was that Serbia by its peculiar geographical position was cut off from outside help. It was easy for the western powers to help Greece with their fleets, and for Russia to help Rumania and, later, Bulgaria directly with its army, because communication between them was easy. But Serbia on the one hand was separated from the sea, first by Dalmatia, which was always in foreign possession, and then by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and the sandjak (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro, also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to bear upon the Turks from that quarter. Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were then still under Turkish control, and either they had to be traversed or the Danube had to be navigated from its mouth upwards through Turkish territory. The only country which could have helped Serbia was Austria, but as it was against their best interests to do so, the Austrians naturally did all they could not to advance, but to retard the Serbian cause. As a result of all this Serbia, in her long struggle against the Turks, had to rely principally on its own resources, though Russian diplomacy several times saved the renascent country from disaster.

Another reason for the slowness of the emancipation and development of modern Serbia has been the proneness of its people to internal dissension. There was no national dynasty on whom the leadership of the country would naturally devolve after the first successful revolution against Turkish rule, there was not even any aristocracy left, and no foreign ruler was ever asked for by the Serbs or was ever imposed on them by the other nations as in the case of Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria. On the other hand the rising against Turkey was a rising of the whole people, and it was almost inevitable that as soon as some measure of independence was gained the unity the Serbs had shown when fighting against their oppressors should dissolve and be replaced by bitter rivalries and disputes amongst the various local leaders who had become prominent during the rebellion.

These rivalries early in the nineteenth century resolved themselves into a blood-feud between two families, the Karagjorgjević and the Obrenović, a quarrel that filled Serbian history and militated against the progress of the Serb people throughout the nineteenth century.

The same reasons which restricted the growth of the political independence of Serbia have also impeded, or rather made impossible, its economic development and material prosperity. Until recent years Austria-Hungary and Turkey between them held Serbia territorially in such a position that whenever Serbia either demurred at its neighbours' tariffs or wished to retaliate by means of its own, the screw was immediately applied and economic strangulation threatened. Rumania and Bulgaria economically could never be of help to Serbia, because the products and the requirements of all three are identical, and Rumania and Bulgaria cannot be expected to facilitate the sale of their neighbours' live stock and cereals, when their first business is to sell their own, while the cost of transit of imports from western Europe through those countries is prohibitive.

After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1788, already mentioned, Serbia remained in a state of pseudo-quiescence for some years. Meanwhile the authority of the Sultan in Serbia was growing ever weaker and the real power was wielded by local Turkish officials, who exploited the country, looked on it as their own property, and enjoyed semi-independence. Their exactions and cruelties were worse than had been those of the Turks in the old days, and it was against them and their troops, not against those of the Sultan, that the first battles in the Serbian war of independence were fought. It was during the year 1803 that the Serbian leaders first made definite plans for the rising which eventually took place in the following year. The ringleader was George Petrović, known as Black George, or Kara-George, and amongst his confederates was Milos Obrenović. The centre of the conspiracy was at Topola, in the district of Sumadija in central Serbia (between the Morava and the Drina rivers), the native place of Kara-George. The first two years of fighting between the Serbians and, first, the provincial janissaries, and, later, the Sultan's forces, fully rewarded the bravery and energy of the insurgents. By the beginning of 1807 they had virtually freed all northern Serbia by their own unaided efforts and captured the towns of Pozarevac, Smederevo, Belgrade, and Sabac. The year 1804 is also notable as the date of the formal opening of diplomatic relations directly between Serbia and Russia. At this time the Emperor Alexander I was too preoccupied with Napoleon to be able to threaten the Sultan (Austerlitz took place in November 1805), but he gave the Serbs financial assistance and commended their cause to the especial care of his ambassador at Constantinople.

In 1807 war again broke out between Russia and Turkey, but after the Peace of Tilsit (June 1807) fighting ceased also between the Turks and the Russians and the Serbs, not before the Russians had won several successes against the Turks on the Lower Danube. It was during the two following years of peace that dissensions first broke out amongst the Serbian leaders; fighting the Turks was the sole condition of existence which prevented them fighting each other. In 1809-10 Russia and the Serbs again fought the Turks, at first without success, but later with better fortune. In 1811 Kara-George was elected Gospodar, or sovereign, by a popular assembly, but Serbia still remained a Turkish province. At the end of that year the Russians completely defeated the Turks at Rustchuk in Bulgaria, and, if all had gone well, Serbia might there and then have achieved complete independence.