 |
It is but one more instance of the fact that it was largely to the fanaticism of the Orthodox Church that the Balkan people owed their conquest by the Turks. Evidence enough there is to show that when their fate was in the balance the Orthodox of the Balkans regarded the Turk as a lesser evil than the Pope. Even in 1902, though a few mosques were still permitted to exist, no Catholic Church was tolerated save that attached to one of the Legations over which, of course, the Serb Government had no control. Most of the foreign women I met, who had married Serbs, told me frankly that for the sake of peace they had had to join the Orthodox Church; "you cannot live here unless you do."
The American missionaries who have done so much for Bulgaria and were permitted to work freely under the tolerant Turk, were only allowed to travel through Serbia on condition they held no services.
I was astonished at the intense bitterness with which the ex-Queen Natalie's conversion to Rome was spoken of. As the poor woman had led a wretched life in Serbia and had left it for ever, her religion could be no concern whatever now of the Serbs. But it seemed to be considered on all sides as an insult to the nation.
Nor was it, so far as I could see, because the people were devout believers—the upper classes certainly did not appear to be—but because the Church was Serbian, and represented a frenzied and intolerant Nationalism. To such an extent was this carried out that a Catholic Albanian, of whom I subsequently saw a good deal, had to add "itch" to the end of his name and conform to the Orthodox Church outwardly in order to obtain leave to open a shop in Belgrade.
That frenzied Nationalism and not religion is at the base of this intolerance is further proved by hatred of the Serb for the Bulgarian Church, which on all points of dogma and doctrine and in its services is precisely the same as that of the Serbs.
And this same frenzied Nationalism, if persisted in, may yet lead to Serbia's undoing.
On looking back I see that my tour in Serbia was a turning point in my Balkan studies. Till then the Balkans had been a happy hunting ground filled by picturesque and amusing people, in which to collect tales, sketch and forget home miseries for a time in a quite new world.
I left Serbia with very mixed feelings. Much of the tour I had enjoyed. After the police difficulties of the beginning I had met with great hospitality and much kindness and it is always a pleasure to penetrate an unknown land, ride through great forests and see the new view open at the top of the pass. When the Belgrade police visaed my passport for the last time they bade me a friendly farewell. But I was severely disillusioned as to Great Serbia. Instead of brethren pining to be united, I had found a mass of dark intrigue—darker than I then knew—envy, hatred and all uncharitableness. No love was lost between Serb and Montenegrin. Alexander was to divorce his wife or go. "Something" would happen soon. And I knew that if Prince Mirko really aspired to the throne of Serbia he would be disappointed—no matter which way the cat hopped.
The Balkans were in future to be to me a Sphinx—an asker of ceaseless riddles each of which led to one yet more complicated; riddles which it took long to solve.
The riddle of my strange reception in Serbia was not explained until four years afterwards. And the tale fits in rightly here.
It was Militchevitch who told me—he who had signed my passport in the spring of 1902. I did not see him again till 1907. "I have been reading your book," he said. "I wondered if you had noticed what happened. I see you did at once."
"Noticed what!" I asked.
"That from the time you left Pirot you were differently treated." He laughed. "Now it is all over long ago you may as well know. You have no idea the excitement you caused. The Serbian Government spent a small fortune in cypher telegrams about you." And he told this astonishing tale: Among the banished members of the Karageorgevitch family was a certain woman who came to England and studied at an English college. She wore her hair short. When therefore I arrived at Belgrade, as ignorant as any babe of the dark undercurrent of politics, the Serbian police at once leapt to the conclusion that I was the lady in question come on a political errand. My passport bothered them as they could find no flaw in it. It was arranged to keep me under supervision and Militchevitch was at once telegraphed to. What did he know about the so-called Englishwoman whose passport he had signed? He could only reply "Nothing." Followed an angry telegram asking what business he had to sign the passports of people of whom he knew nothing, and that in fact he had let one of the Karageorgevitch gang get into the country, who was about to be arrested. Much alarmed, he replied that he was under the impression I was certainly English, and that it would be rash in the highest degree to arrest me without further evidence. They then did all they could to prevent my tour, short of forbidding it. My imperturbable persistence thwarted them. Telegrams flew backwards and forwards. London to Belgrade, Belgrade to London. Militchevitch was ordered to make enquiries about me of the police, who knew nothing at all about me, which surprised him. He ascertained, however, that persons of my name actually lived at the address I had given and were locally of good repute. He implored that my arrest—which was imminent—should be delayed lest international complications ensued. Why the Serb authorities did not impart their doubts to the British Consulate in Belgrade must remain a Balkan mystery. Instead of doing so the Serb police replied, "We are having her followed everywhere. The names of all she speaks to are noted. She goes everywhere. She talks to any one who will talk to her. She draws all kinds of things for what purpose we cannot ascertain. She speaks Serbian very badly, but it is evident she does so on purpose and that she understands everything." My arrest was almost decided on, when some one had a brilliant idea. A photograph of the suspected Serbian lady was somehow obtained in England and Militchevitch was then able to swear that it had no resemblance to the Englishwoman whose passport he had signed. Serbia was saved—that time! I was then in Pirot. Orders at once flew over the country that the treatment should be at once reversed and that the unpleasant impression that had been produced should be, as far as possible, obliterated.
The episode gives a clear idea of the state of nervous tension that existed.
The sublime folly of the Serbian police consisted in thinking that if I were really an agent of Prince Mirko, bringing messages and intending to take them on to Sofia I should have been such a fool as to tell every one I met that I had just come from Cetinje. But perhaps they judged others by themselves. The semi-oriental mind is born to suspicion and can conceive of no straightforward action. In truth "DORA" hails from the Near East. Is not her very name of Greek origin?
To me it was a useful experience for it hardened me to being "shadowed," and I bore it serenely ever afterwards. So much so in fact that when in 1915 at Marseilles I was twice cross-examined by the French Intelligence Officers and three times and very minutely, by the English ones, I thought it funny, which surprised them. They would have been still more surprised had I told them that they reminded me of the police of Belgrade, and asked them why they were called "Intelligence."
Their efforts were as vain as those of their Serb forerunners and for the same reason. I had no plots to reveal.
CHAPTER FIVE.
WHAT WAS BEHIND IT ALL
It is a strange Desire to seeke Power and to lose Libertie. . . . The standing is slippery, and the Regresse is either a Downefall, or at least an Eclipse. Which is a Melancholy Thing.—BACON.
I went to Serbia as a tourist, but, thanks to the misdirected energy of the Serb police, was made aware for the first time of the unseen forces which were at work in the Balkans. What these forces were we must now consider. Since the end of the seventeenth century Russia and Austria had competed for expansion into the Balkans. Each had gone to war nominally, "to free Christians from the Turkish yoke," but actually in order to annex these populations themselves. Each, by promoting risings in Turkish territory and by financing rival Balkan sovereigns, had silently and ceaselessly worked towards the same goal.
In the great game Montenegro, as we have seen, hall been Russia's pawn since the days when Peter the Great sent his Envoy to Vladika Danilo. Montenegro had become Russia's outpost in the West. Russia was Montenegro's God—and her paymaster. "The dog barks for him that feeds him!" says an Albanian proverb. Montenegro barked, and bit too, at Russia's behest.
Serbia throughout the nineteenth century was rent by the ceaseless blood-feud between the Karageorgevitches and the Obrenovitches, a history bloody as that of the Turkish Sultans, the results of which are not yet over—one that has so largely influenced the fate of yet unborn generations that we must understand its outlines in order to follow modern events.
Serbia, at the end of the eighteenth century, was bitterly oppressed, not so much by the Turkish Government, as by the Jannisaries, the insolent and all powerful military organization which had broken loose from restraint and was now a danger to the Turkish Empire. The Jannisaries actually elected their own chiefs and were semi-independent. And of all the Jannisaries of the Empire none were more opposed to the Sultan than those of Belgrade. Their commanders called themselves Dahis and aimed at complete government of the province.
It is a singular fact, and one which should be emphasized, that the Jannisaries were themselves to a very large extent, of Balkan origin. Their ancestors had been either forcibly converted or had, as was not infrequent, voluntarily adopted Islam. The Moslem Serb was a far greater persecutor of the Christian Serb than was the Turk. We find that the leading Dahis of Belgrade hailed from Focha in the Herzegovina.
Sultan Selim in, terrified of the growing power of these Jannisaries, sided with his Christian subjects, sent troops against them, and forcibly evicted them from Belgrade. A Turkish Pasha, Hadji Mustafa, was appointed as Governor, whose rule was so just and beneficent that the land was soon at peace and the grateful Serbs called him "Srpska Majka"—the Serbian Mother.
But the Jannisaries had retired only as far as Widin which was commanded by the brigand leader Pasvanoglu, whose savage hordes were devastating the country-side in defiance of the Government. Together they attacked the Serbs. Hadji Mustafa, true to his trust, organized the Serbs to resist. The Serbs were now by no means untrained to war, for many had served in the Austrian Army during the late campaigns against the Turks. But the spectacle of a Turkish Pasha inciting Christian rayah against an army of Moslems aroused the wrath of the Faithful throughout the Empire. They demanded the deposition of Hadji Mustafa and the re-admission of the Jannisaries to Belgrade. The Sultan was unable to resist and the Jannisaries returned. Thirsting to avenge the humiliation of their forced retirement they assassinated Hadji Mustafa, seized power, and to prevent a further Serb rising, fell upon the Serb villages and murdered numbers of the headmen. By so doing they precipitated what they wished to prevent.
The Serbs rose in mass and called Karageorge, grandfather of the present King Peter of Serbia, to be their leader. He refused at first, saying that his violent temper would cause him to kill without taking council first. But he was told that the times called for violence. Born of peasant stock about 1765, his upbringing was crudely savage; his ferocity was shown from the first.
In 1787 a panic seized the peasants when an Austrian attack upon the Turks was expected. To save themselves and their flocks from the approaching Turkish army they fled in crowds, hurrying to cross the Save and finding safety in Austria. George's father was very reluctant to go, and on reaching the river would not cross it. George, in a blind fury, refusing either to stay himself and make terms with the Turks, or to leave his father behind, snatched the pistol from his sash and shot the old man down. Then, shouting to a comrade to give his father a death-blow, for he was still writhing, George hurried on, leaving behind him a few cattle to pay for the burial and the funeral feast.
On his return later to Serbia he took to the mountains for some time as a heyduk or brigand.
Such was the man called on to lead the Serbs. Rough and completely uneducated, he yet possessed that strange power of influencing men which constitutes a born leader. His practice as a heyduk and a natural capacity for strategy enabled him for long to wage successful guerrilla warfare, which baffled the Turks. The dense forests and the roadless mountains were natural fortresses of which he made full use.
Alternating with astonishing outbursts of energy and ferocity, were periods of sullen silence during which he sat for days without speaking, gnawing his nails. That there was a strain of insanity in his genius appears certain—an insanity which has reappeared in his great-grandson and namesake who, subject to similar fits of loss of control, used to terrorise the populace by galloping furiously through village streets, and was finally forced to abdicate his right to the throne in March 1909, after the brutal murder of his valet. A case worth the study of students of heredity.
A contemporary of old Karageorge thus describes him:
"His bold forehead bound with a tress of black hair gave him a look rather Asiatic than European. . . . This man was one of the bold creations of wild countries and troublous times—beings of impetuous courage, iron strength, original talent and doubtful morality."
The might of his personality overcame all obstacles. He appealed to Russia for aid, and a Russian Minister was sent to Serbia along with money and men. He freed and ruled over a large tract of land. But his rule was not much milder than that of the Jannisaries, and his harsh tyranny made him many enemies. When his wrath was once aroused it was unrestrainable, and he struck down and killed many of his own followers. Discontent arose and spread.
The Serbs divided into many parties, each with rival leaders. Russia, who had supported Karageorge, was now herself engaged in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. The Russian regiment which had been quartered at Belgrade, left the country. The turn of the Turks had now come. They attacked the Serbs in force. With no aid from without to be hoped for, the country was in greater danger than ever. But even common danger, as history has again and again shown, does not suffice to cure that fatal Slav weakness—the tendency to split into rival parties led by jealous chieftains. There was no union among the Serb forces now, at the very hour when it was most needed. And for some never explained reason Karageorge failed to appear.
His Voyvodas struggled with the foe and were beaten back and suddenly, in October 1813, Karageorge, the chosen leader of the Serbian people, fled into Austria with a few followers, without even having struck a blow.
This tragic and most fatal failure was due in all probability, to a mental collapse to which his unstable and unbalanced nature would be peculiarly liable.
The Austrians promptly interned both him and his men in fortresses, but released them at the intercession of Russia, and they retired into Bessarabia.
Meanwhile, his place was taken by Milosh Obrenovitch, also a peasant, who led the Serb rising of 1815 with such success that he was recognized as ruler, under Turkish suzerainty, of a considerable territory. And as a ruler, moreover, with hereditary rights.
It is said that Russia never forgave the Obrenovitches that they were appointed by the Sultan and not by herself. Scarcely was Milosh well established when Karageorge returned from his long absence.
The break-up of the Turkish Empire had begun. The Greeks were in a ferment. Russia supported them. The Hetairia had been formed and a plan was afoot for a great simultaneous rising of Greeks and Serbs and Roumanians. Karageorge was to be one of its leaders.
But Milosh was in power, id did not mean to relinquish it. And he dreamed already of wide empire. He examined the question with sangfroid and decided that if the Greek revolution succeeded in its hopes, an Empire would be reborn in the East which would regard Serbia as its province and might be more dangerous than the Turk. Did not the Greeks, in the fourteenth century, call the Turks to Europe to fight the "Tsar of Macedonia who loves Christ?" Milosh remained faithful to the Turk, saying "Let us remain in Turkey and profit by her mistakes." He suppressed all pro-Greek action, executed twenty pro-Greek conspirators, and exposed their bodies at the roadside, and—in an evil hour for Serbia—had Karageorge assassinated and sent his head to the Pasha.
From that day onward the feud between the two houses raged with ever increasing fury. Until to-day every ruler of Serbia has been either exiled, murdered, or has had his life attempted.
"Family tradition comes first" says Vladan Georgevitch. "All the families of Serbia have, from the beginning, been followers of either the Karageorgevitches or the Obrenovitches." As time went on, the Obrenovitches became the choice of Austria, while Russia supported the Karageorges, and the puppets jigged as the Great Powers pulled the wires.
Milosh's subjects revolted against his intolerable tyranny and exiled him in 1839. His son Michel succeeded him, a cultivated man who strove to introduce Austrian educational methods. He was evicted in 1842, and the Karageorges again swung into power. Alexander, father of King Petar, was put on the throne, only in his turn to be chased out in 1858. And old Milosh came back and died in 1860 —fortunately for himself perhaps—for he was the same old Milosh, and his renewed tyranny was again provoking wrath.
Serbia had now come to a parting of the ways. There was a Prince of either line, and each had already occupied the throne. Michel Obrenovitch was re-elected. All agree that he was the most enlightened Prince that had as yet occupied the throne, but the blood of old Black George was unavenged, and Michel paid the penalty. He and his cousin, Madame Constantinovitch, and his aide-de-camp were all assassinated on June 10, 1868, in the Park near Belgrade. So set were the murderers on fulfilling their task that they hacked their victim's body with forty wounds. The complicity of Alexander Karageorgevitch and his son Petar—now King —was proved. The plot was engineered by means of Alexander's lawyer, Radovanovitch. The Shkupstina hastily summoned demanded the extradition of the two Karageorgevitches of Austria, whither they had fled, and failing to obtain it outlawed them and all their house for ever and ever, and declared their property forfeit to the State. Fifteen accomplices arrested in Serbia were found guilty and executed with a barbarity which roused European indignation. We can scarcely doubt what would have been the fate of the two principals had they fallen into Serb hands. The grotesque fact remains that it is to Austria that King Petar owes not only his crown, but his life!
It was an odd fate that thirty years afterwards gave me an introduction to a relative of one of the conspirators, and almost caused a fight to take place over me at Kraljevo.
The Karageorgevitches having been exiled by the unanimous vote of the Shkupstina for ever—till next time—Milan, cousin of the murdered Michel, succeeded him on the throne at the age of fourteen. And there was a Regency till 1872.
Milan was a handsome dashing fellow with not too much brain—a typical, boastful, immoral Serb officer.
As a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, in which, however, he displayed little military skill, Serbia was raised from a principality to a Kingdom.
Russia at this time showed little or no interest in Serbia. She was devoting all her energy and diplomacy to the creation of a big Bulgaria, which should ultimately serve her as a land-bridge to the coveted Constantinople. She had no use then for Serbia, and was no friend of the Obrenovitches, and in the Treaty of San Stefano dealt so scurvily by Serbia that Prince Milan opposed the Treaty and said he would defend Nish against Russian troops if necessary.
At the Berlin Congress, Milan called for and obtained a good deal more land than Russia had allotted him—territory which was, in fact, Bulgar and Albanian. He, moreover, made a Convention with Austria by which the frontiers and dynasty of Serbia were guaranteed. One of those many "scraps of paper" which fill the World's Waste Paper Basket.
It was now plain that Milan, if allowed to gain more power, would be an obstacle to Pan-slavism in the Balkans.
The claims of the disinherited and exiled Petar Karageorgevitch began to be talked of. Nikola Pashitch, hereafter to be connected with a long series of crimes, now appears on the scenes. Of Macedonian origin, he soon became one of Russia's tools, and was leader of the so-called Radical party, though "pro-Russian" would be a more descriptive title. It was "radical" only in the sense that it was bent on rooting up any that opposed it. Things began to move. In 1883 Prince Nikola married his daughter to Petar Karageorgevitch, and that same year a revolt in favour of Petar broke out at the garrison town of Zaitshar. Oddly enough it was at Zaitshar in 1902 that I was most pestered by the officers to declare whom I thought should ascend the Serbian throne should Alexander die childless. By that time I was wary and put them off by saying "The Prince of Wales!"
I have often wondered how many of those suspicious and swaggering officers were among those who next year flung the yet palpitating bodies of Alexander and Draga from the Konak windows while the Russian Minister looked on.
The revolt of 1883 was quickly crushed and Pashitch, along with some other conspirators, fled into Bulgaria for protection. Others were arrested in Serbia and executed. The pro-Russian movement was checked for a time.
Pashitch owed his life to Bulgaria, and not on this occasion only. His subsequent conduct to that land has not been marked with gratitude.
CHAPTER SIX.
THE GREAT SERBIAN IDEA
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."—SCOTT.
The Great Serbian Idea—the scheme for the reconstruction of Tsar Dushan's mediaeval Empire—now began to sprout and germinate. In truth that Empire had been constructed by Dushan by means of mercenary armies, partly German, by aid of which he temporarily subdued Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgars and Greeks. And he paid those armies by means of the silver mines, worked largely by Italians. Great Serbia was an incoherent mass of different and hostile races, and it broke to pieces immediately on his death. But five centuries of Turkish rule in no way modified the hate which one Balkan race bore for another. Each, on gaining freedom, had but one idea—to overthrow and rule the other. Milosh Obrenovitch had already begun to toy with the Great Serbian Idea when he refused to support the Greeks in their struggle for freedom. The success of the wars of 1876-77 raised fresh ambitions.
But now there were two possible heads for Great Serbia—Milan Obrenovitch, who had been raised to kingship, and who owed his position to Austria; and Nikola Petrovitch, recognized as Prince of an independent land, and "the only friend" of the Tsar of All the Russias. The bitter rivalry, not yet extinct, between the two branches of the Serb race—Serbia and Montenegro—now began.
One thing the Serb people have never forgotten and that is that in Dushan's reign Bulgaria was Serbia's vassal. The reconstruction simultaneously of Big Bulgaria and Great Serbia is impossible. And neither race has as yet admitted that a middle course is the safest.
The Zaitshar affair had shown King Milan pretty clearly that the blood of the murdered Karageorge still howled for vengeance. His position was further complicated by the fact that his beautiful Russian wife, Natalie, was an ardent supporter of the plans of her Fatherland.
He made a bold bid for popularity. Filled with exaggerated ideas of his own prowess, and flushed by victories over the Turks, he rushed to begin reconstructing Great Serbia by attacking Bulgaria, which, though newly formed, had already shown signs of consolidating and becoming a stumbling block in Serbia's path to glory. The declaration of war was immensely popular. Had Milan succeeded, the fate of the Obrenovitches might have been very different. But he and his army were so badly beaten that only swift intervention by Austria saved Serbia from destruction.
Pashitch, it should be noted, remained in Bulgaria during this war, and in fact owed his life to that country which he has since done so much to ruin.
The pieces on the Balkan chessboard then stood thus: A Serbia which was the most bitter enemy of Bulgaria and whose King was Austrophile.
A violently pro-Russian Montenegro, filled with contempt for the beaten Serbs, and ruled by a Prince who regarded himself confidently as the God-appointed restorer of Great Serbia, and who was openly supporting his new son-in-law, the rival claimant to the Serb throne.
The throne of Serbia, never too stable, now rocked badly. King Milan declared that Pan-Slavism was the enemy of Serbia and he was certainly right. For in those days it would have simply meant complete domination by Russia—the great predatory power whose maw has never yet been filled.
He pardoned Pashitch, thinking possibly it was better to come to terms with him than to have him plotting in an enemy country, Pashitch returned as head of the Radical party and Serbia became a hot-bed of foul and unscrupulous intrigue into which we need not dig now.
Between the partisans of Russia and Austria, Serbia was nearly torn in half. After incessant quarrels with his Russian wife, Milan in 1888 divorced her—more or less irregularly—and in the following year threw up the game and abdicated in favour of his only legitimate child, the ill-fated Alexander who was then but fourteen.
Torn this way and that by his parents' quarrels, brought up in the notoriously corrupt court of Belgrade and by nature, according to the accounts of those who knew him, of but poor mental calibre, Alexander is, perhaps, to be as much pitied as blamed. His nerves, so Mr. Chedo Miyatovitch told me, never recovered from the shock of a boating accident when young. He was the last and decadent scion of the Obrenovitches and was marked down from his accession.
Vladan Georgevitch, who was Prime Minister of Serbia from 1897 till 1900, in his book The End of a Dynasty, throws much light on the events that led up to the final catastrophe. It is highly significant that after its publication he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, not for libel or false statements, but "on a charge of having acted injuriously to Serbia by publishing State secrets." His account is therefore in all probability correct. He begins by relating Prince Alexander's visit to Montenegro shortly after the termination of the Regency. Here the astute Prince Nikola tried to persuade him to marry Princess Xenia. Princess Zorka was dead; Prince Nikola had quarrelled rather badly with his son-in-law, Petar Karageorgevitch, and, it would appear, meant to lose no chance of obtaining a matrimonial alliance with any and every possible claimant to the Serbian throne. Alexander would not consent to the match, and stated that his object in visiting Montenegro was to bring about a political alliance between that country and Serbia in order to defend Serb schools and churches in Turkish territory and generally protect Serb interests. This Nikola refused unless the said lands were definitely partitioned into "spheres of interest" and Prizren were included in his own. He was already determined to occupy the throne of Stefan Dushan. The two ministers who accompanied Alexander supported this claim. "I tell you," says Alexander, "these two men when with me at Cetinje acted not as Ministers of mine, but as Ministers of the Prince of Montenegro." He denounced such a division of the territory and the negotiations broke off. The visit to Montenegro was a failure.
Some years afterwards in Montenegro I was told triumphantly that the match would not have been at all suitable for Princess Xenia and that her father had refused it on the grounds that "no King of Serbia has yet died except by murder, or in exile." But the death of Alexander was then already planned—though I of course did not know it—and Alexander's version of the affair is more probably correct.
In 1897 the nets began to close round the wretched youth. Russia made up her long quarrel with Bulgaria and enlisted a new foe to the Obrenovitches—Prince Ferdinand. She had long refused to recognize this astute and capable Prince who was rapidly raising Bulgaria to an important position in the Balkans, and now decided to make use of him. The benefits might be mutual, for without Russian support Ferdinand could not hope to reconstruct the Big Bulgaria of the Middle Ages. Russia cynically used either Bulgaria or Serbia as best suited her purpose at the moment. In August of the same year Russia further strengthened her position by her alliance with France, who at once obediently ranged herself against the Obrenovitches.
In the following October, Alexander appointed Vladan Georgevitch Prime Minister, and bade him form a Government. The merits or demerits of this Government we need not trouble about. What is of interest is that it was at once attacked by the French Press. The Temps accused Vladan of secret understandings with Goluchowsky and Kallay, before forming it. The Courier de Soir thought that "such a policy is the result of the Triple Alliance and is an offence to the balance of Europe." Serbia apparently was to be used as the determining weight on the European scales. La Souverainte went farther and said boldly: "The moment has come when Tsar Nicholas should show the same firmness of character as his father showed to the Battenburg and Coburg in Bulgaria!" The Nova Vremya declared "that the new Government clearly meant to bring Serbia into economic dependence on Austria-Hungary."
And most of the newspapers of Europe announced the fact that the Tsar had granted an audience to Prince Petar Karageorgevitch and had conversed with him on the critical state of Serbia. Vladan then recommended to Alexander the rash plan of inviting General von der Golte to xmdertake the reform of the Serb Army as he had done that of Turkey. The plan pleased von der Goltz, but was dropped in consequence of the violent anti-Serb campaign which it aroused in the French Press. The Serb Minister in Paris, Garashanin, tried to buy some of the French papers, but had to report to his Government that this was impossible so long as Serbia was hostile to Russia.
France was paying the Russian piper—but it was the piper that called the tune. The Russo-French policy of ringing in the Central Powers was already aimed at.
The wretched Alexander, not knowing whom to trust, nor where to turn, then begged his exiled father to return from Austria and take command of the army. Milan did so and Russia was more than ever furious.
Warnings were now frequently received that Russia was planning the deaths of both Milan and Alexander. One such warning was sent by the Berlin Foreign Office.
In May 1898 Nikola Pashitch, who had been working an anti-Obrenovitch propaganda in Bulgaria, was again in Serbia, and led the Radical party in the general elections. The Government, however, won by a large majority.
His work in Bulgaria seems to have been effective for in June the Serb Minister to Sofia sent in a very important report to his Government:
1. That Russia was determined that Milan should leave Serbia.
2. That Prince Ferdinand was willing to support Russia in this way by any means—even bad ones.
3. That the Princes of Montenegro and Bulgaria were co-operating.
Shortly afterwards Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Nikola of Montenegro, the Russian Minister and the Bulgarian diplomatic agent to Cetinje all met at Abbazia. And Ferdinand is reported to have promised Nikola the support of his army to overthrow the Obrenovitches with a view to finally uniting Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and the Herzegovina into one state with Nikola as head. Nikola began to sow the ground by starting a newspaper which attacked Austrian policy in Bosnia severely.
This is a most important turning point in Balkan history, and we shall see many results.
Mr. J. D. Bourchier, whose knowledge of Bulgarian affairs is unrivalled, has further told me that not only did Montenegro and Bulgaria work together for a long while, but Bulgaria also supplied Montenegro with much money—she was, in fact, another of the many States who have put money into Montenegro—and lost it.
Things soon began to move. Prince Nikola got in touch with the Radical party in Serbia and they began to prepare the downfall of the Obrenovitches.
Bulgaria refortified her Serbian frontier. The Narodni Listy of Prague described Prince Nikola as the only true Serb upon a throne.
King Alexander proposed at this time to visit Queen Victoria, but was informed by Lord Salisbury that Her Majesty's health had already obliged her to decline other visits and she was therefore unable to receive him.
The Serb Government then complained that Queen Victoria had conferred a high Order on Prince Nikola, who was but a vassal of Russia, and had given nothing to the King of Serbia. Some papers even declared she had shown preference to Nikola precisely on account of his pro-Russian tendencies.
Russia showed her feelings plainly. The Tsar at a reception spoke sharply to the Serbian Minister and ignored the new Serbian military attache who had come to be presented.
Tension between Serbia and Montenegro was now acute. Large numbers of Montenegrins had been emigrating into Serbia attracted by the better livelihood to be obtained. The Serb Government in October 1898 formally notified Montenegro that this immigration must cease. No more land was available for Montenegrins.
The Magyar Orsyagu went so far as to say "Montenegrin agents wander over Serbia with their propaganda and Serbia has therefore forbidden the further settlement of Montenegrins in Serbia." Pashitch again came to the fore and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for publishing an offensive letter to the ex-King Milan. And in November a plot, alleged to be Bulgaro-Montenegrin, against Milan, was discovered.
Russia was furious that Milan, in spite of these warnings, remained in Serbia.
And in July 1899 he was fired at and slightly wounded. Milan insisted on martial law being proclaimed and many arrests were made. The would-be assassin was a young Bosnian—Knezhevitch. The Times spoke of the conspiracy as a Russo-Bulgarian one. It is stated to have been planned in Bucarest by Arsene Karageorgevitch and a Russian agent.
Pashitch, who since 1888 had been in close connection with the Karageorges, was accused of complicity and Milan insisted on his execution. His guilt was by no means proved and he was finally sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but at once pardoned by Alexander. In reply he telegraphed, "I hasten in a moment so happy and so solemn for my family, to lay before your Majesty my sincere and humble gratitude for the very great mercy which you, Sire, have shown me from the height of your throne. I declare to you, Sire, that I will, in future . . . give my whole soul to strengthening that order in the State which your Majesty introduced in 1897, from which, thanks to your distinguished father, King Milan, as commander-in-Chief of the Army, the country has derived so much benefit." He further promised to put the remainder of his life to the exclusive service of King Alexander and his country, and ends with, "Long live the hope of the Serb nation, your Majesty our Lord and King Alexander!" signed, "The most sincere and devoted servant of the House of Obrenovitch and the throne of your Majesty, Nikola Pashitch." This amazing telegram caused consternation in Russia. And well it might. The annals of crime scarcely contain a more gross example of perjury.
We now enter upon the last act of the sordid drama. For several years Alexander had kept a mistress, Madame Draga Maschin, nee Lungevitza, the widow of a Serbian officer. She was a handsome woman, considerably older than Alexander, and possessed such a hold over him that the more credulous of the Serbs—including an ex-Minister to the Court at St. James's—believed that she had bewitched him by means of a spell made by a gypsy woman who had chopped some of Draga's hair fine and made a mixture which she put into Alexander's food. Only by magic, I have been assured, could such results have been obtained. Alexander "was crazy about her."
The Serbs are not particular about morals by any means. But this liaison was a national misfortune Especially to all supporters of the Obrenovitches. Not only under these circumstances could there be no legitimate heir to the throne but a matrimonial alliance with one of the Great Powers was desired by the country. By 1899 the situation had become acute. The spectacle of Alexander waiting in the street till Draga chose to admit him was a national scandal.
He was repeatedly approached on the subject, both by his father and the nation, but Draga held him in a firm grip. Enmeshed as he knew he was in hostile intrigues, surrounded by spies and traitors, and himself a fool at best, maybe the luckless youth regarded her indeed as the one human creature for whom he had any affection or trust. Be that as it may Alexander, under her influence, promised his father and Vladan Georgevitch that he would marry if a suitable match could be arranged. He persuaded them to leave the country to visit a foreign Court with this object, and so soon as they had gone he publicly and formally announced his betrothal to Draga, and informed his father of the fact by letter. Milan, horrified, replied that the dynasty would not survive the blow, and that even a mere lieutenant would scorn such a match.
The Russian Minister Mansurov, however, called at once to offer his congratulations to Alexander, and called also upon Draga. It has even been suggested that Russia arranged the affair, and that Draga was her tool. This is, however, improbable. It was more likely the achievement of an ambitious and most foolish woman. But that Russia jumped at it as the very best means of compassing Alexander's ruin cannot be doubted, for no less a person than the Tsar accepted the post of Kum (Godfather) at the wedding, thus publicly announcing his approval of the marriage at which he was represented by a proxy, when it was celebrated at Belgrade shortly afterwards. Alexander never saw either of his parents again. Milan resigned the command of the army and retired to Austria and his stormy and variegated career came to an end in the following year. He was only forty-seven at the time of his death, but had compressed into those years an amount of adventure unusual even in the Balkans.
Alexander's marriage, as doubtless foreseen by Russia, soon proved disastrous. Draga, having achieved her ambition and mounted the throne, showed none of the ability of Theodora. Clever enough to captivate the feeble-minded Alexander, she was too stupid to realize that her only chance lay in gaining the popularity of the people who were none too well disposed. With incredible folly, before in any way consolidating her position, she formed a plot worthy only of a second-rate cinematograph, pretended pregnancy and planned to foist a "supposititious child" upon the nation. A plan, foredoomed by its folly to failure, which brought down on her the contempt and ridicule not only of Serbia, but of all Europe. Such was the history of Serbia up to the date when I plunged into it and found it on the verge of a crisis.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1903 AND WHAT HAPPENED
For Leagues within a State are ever pernicious to Monarchic.
Early in 1903 I received an invitation to stay with certain of the partisans of the Karageorgevitches in Serbia. The "something" that was to happen had not yet come to pass. My sister wished to travel with me, and my experiences of last year were not such as to lead me to take her to Serbia. One takes risks without hesitation when alone, into which one cannot drag a comrade. We went to Montenegro. It was hot even at Cetinje. We were resting in one of the back bedrooms of the hotel on the afternoon of June 11, when there came a loud knocking at the door and the voice of Ivan, the waiter, crying "telegramme, telegramme." We jumped up at once, fearing bad news, and Stvane cried excitedly as I opened the door, "The King and Queen of Serbia are both dead!" My brain re-acted instantly. The "something" had happened, the crisis had come. Without pausing a minute to reflect, I said: "Then Petar Karageorgevitch will be King!"
"No, no," cried Ivan; "Every one says it will be our Prince Mirko!" "No," said I decidedly, for I was quite certain, "It will not be Mirko"; and I asked "How did they die?"
"God knows," said he; "some say they quarrelled and one shot the other and then committed suicide. And it will be Mirko, Gospodjitza. There was an article in the paper about it only the other day." He ran off and fetched a paper. I regret now that I took no note what paper it was, but it certainly contained an article naming Mirko as heir to the Serb throne, supposing Alexander to die without issue.
Cetinje was excited as never before. Ordinarily, it lived on one telegram a day from the Correspondenz Bureau. Now the boys ran to and fro the telegraph office and bulletins poured in. One of the earliest stated that the King and Queen had died suddenly, cause of death unknown, but bullet wounds found in the bodies.
Later came full details. According to Belgrade papers a revolution had been planning for three months and there were secret committees all over the country; that the decision to slaughter both King and Queen had been taken by the Corps of Officers at Belgrade, and the work entrusted to the 6th Infantry Regiment; that the band of assassins gained access to the Palace at 11 p.m.; and, as the King refused to open the door of his bedroom, it was blown in by Colonel Naumovitch with a dynamite cartridge the explosion of which killed its user.
What followed was a shambles. The bodies of the victims, still breathing, but riddled with bullets, were pitched from the window. Draga, fortunately for herself, expired at once. But the luckless Alexander lingered till 4 a.m.
According to current report the assassins, drunk with wine and blood, fell on the bodies and defiled them most filthily, even cutting portions of Draga's skin, which they dried and preserved as trophies. An officer later showed a friend of mine a bit which he kept in his pocket book.
Alexander was a degenerate. His removal may have been desirable. But not even in Dahomey could it have been accomplished with more repulsive savagery. And the Russian Minister, whose house was opposite the Konak, calmly watched the events from his window. Having wreaked their fury on the bodies, the assassins rushed to kill also Draga's two brothers, one of whom it was rumoured was to be declared heir to the throne by Alexander. Some seventeen others were murdered that night and many wounded. These details we learned later.
The afternoon of the 11th passed with excitement enough. Evening came and we went in to dinner. Upon each table, in place of the usual programme of the evening's performance at the theatre, lay a black edged sheet of paper informing us that the Serbian travelling company then playing in Cetinje "in consequence of the death of our beloved Sovereign King Alexander" had closed the theatre till further notice. The tourist table was occupied solely by my sister and myself; the diplomatic one solely by Mr. Shipley, who was temporarily representing England, and Count Bollati, the Italian Minister. Dinner passed in complete silence. I was aching to have the opinion of the exalted persons at the other table on the startling news, but dared not broach so delicate a subject. The end came however. The servants withdrew and Count Bollati turned to me and said suddenly:
"Now, Mademoiselle, you know these countries What do you think of the situation?"
"Petar Karageorgevitch will be made King."
"People here all say it will be Mirko," said Mr. Shipley.
Count Bollati maintained it would be a republic. I told them the facts I had learned in Serbia, and said that Petar was practically a certainty. They were both much interested.
"In any case," said Mr. Shipley, "I should advise you to say nothing about it here. They are all for Mirko and you may get yourself into trouble."
"I have never seen them so excited," put in the Count.
"You are too late," said I; "I've told them already, Mirko has not a chance. He had better know the truth. You will see in a few days."
Both gentlemen expressed horror at the crudity of my methods. As a matter of fact a good deal of international misunderstanding could be avoided if the truth were always blurted out at once. The Italian thought I was stark mad. The Englishman, having a sense of humour, laughed and said, as I well recollect: "Your mission in life seems to be to tell home truths to the Balkans. It is very good for them. But I wonder that they put up with it." Both gentlemen commented on the grim matter-of-factness of the telegrams. "Business carried on usual during the alterations," said Bollati. His blood was badly curdled by the fact that when he was in Belgrade he was well acquainted with Colonel Mashin, the ill-fated Draga's brother-in-law, who—according to the telegrams—had finished her off with a hatchet.
"And I have shaken hands with him!" said Bollati, disgustedly. Mr. Shipley suggested that as I had first hand information I had better write an article or two for the English papers; which I did at once. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good." I had written my first Balkan book and hawked it unsuccessfully round the publishers, who told me that as nobody in England took the faintest interest in the Balkans, they could not take it, though they kindly added that as travels went it was not so bad. But the assassination of a King appealed at once to the great heart of the British people and I sold that book as an immediate result. This, by the way.
I came down early next morning to post the articles written overnight, and found a whole crowd of officers and intelligentsia (for in no land are these necessarily the same) around the hotel door. Vuko Vuletitch, the hotelier, in his green, red-embroidered coat, was haranguing them from the doorstep with the latest telegram in his hand. Loud and lively discussion filled the air.
Vuko waved his hand as I approached. "Here," he said, "is the Gospodjitza who says Petar Karageorgevitch will be King." I repeated my belief cheerfully: "Your man is elected!" cried Vuko, holding up the telegram. The news had arrived. Mirko's hopes were hopelessly dashed. The accuracy of my information caused a small sensation and I acquired a great reputation for political knowledge. Vuko never failed to ask me in future what I made of the situation.
It was the morning of the 12th when this news came in. Officially, Petar was not elected till the 15th, and then not by a really legal method. The military gang having chosen him, summoned a Parliament which had already been legally dissolved and was therefore non-existent, and caused it to ratify the choice. Whence it has been maintained by many that King Petar never was legally elected.
The 12th, 13th, and 14th passed quietly, though there was a certain air of disappointment. More details came in. Murder is bound to be unlovely. This one was peculiarly so. One fact was prominent. And that was that although many persons expressed horror of the methods and condemned the treachery of officers who had sworn fealty, yet Cetinje as a whole regarded the affair as a blessing. Not only was the populace pleased, but, with childish ignorance of the Western point of view (and at that time West Europe was really very fairly civilized), actually expected Europe to rejoice with them. It was a cleansing of the Temple; a casting out of abominations.
And so ready was every one with a candidate for the throne that it was impossible not to suspect that there had been foreknowledge of the event.
Subsequent enquiry through persons connected with the post office revealed to me the fact that a most unusual amount of cypher telegrams had been buzzing between Belgrade and Cetinje immediately before the bloody climax.
Petar Karageorgevitch, we learnt by telegram, was dwelling in a "modest apartment" in Geneva, and was quite unable to furnish journalists with any information. The Paris Havas found Bozhidar Karageorgevitch more communicative and published an interview in which he pleasantly stated that the event had caused him no surprise as he had foreseen it ever since the marriage with Draga.
On the 14th I drove down to Cattaro with my sister to see her off by steamer. Cattaro, as usual in the summer, lay panting at the water's edge. No more news; any amount of gossip; the Petrovitches were tottering, said some; Prince Mirko had lately fought a duel upon Austrian territory with his brother, Prince Danilo; they would certainly fight for the throne. The Austrian papers were full of "digs" at the Petrovitches. I arrived back at Cetinje on the evening of the 15th to find it beflagged and rows of tallow candles stuck along my bedroom window for the coming illuminations. A telegram had announced the election by the Shkupstina of "our son-in-law" and his accession had already been celebrated by a service at the Monastery Church and a military parade.
"Bogati!" cried Vuko to me, "you are better informed than all the diplomatists." He added that there was to be a gala performance at the theatre. I flew to the Zetski Dom. Not a seat was to be had. "If you don't mind a crowd," said the ever-obliging Vuko, "you can come into my box." And he hurried up dinner that we might all be in time. The diplomatic table complimented me on having "spotted the winner," and on either table lay a festive programme informing us that the Serbian theatrical company, which had abruptly shed its mourning, was giving a gala performance "in honour of the accession of our beloved King Petar."
The theatre was packed from roof to floor. The performance opened with a tableau—a portrait of Petar I, bewreathed and beflagged. A speech was made. There were shouts of "Zhivio!" ("Long life to him!" an eminently suitable remark under the circumstances). The whole house cheered. I felt like an accessory after the act. Up in the Royal Box, the only representatives of the reigning house, sat Prince Mirko and his wife. I watched his stony countenance. But for the devil and Holy Russia, we might have been shouting "Zhivio Kralj Mirko!" I wondered if it hurt badly and felt sorry for him, for I have been ploughed in an exam, myself.
We were a tight fit in our box. Gazivoda, head of the police at Podgoritza and brother-in-law to Vuko, was there. He, too, was assassinated a few years afterwards. And there was a crowd of Vuko's pretty daughters. The eldest, still a pupil at the Russian Girls' School (Russia Institut) was shuddering with horror at the crime. "Poor Queen, poor Queen!" she muttered at intervals, "she was still alive when they threw her from the window. If I had been there I would have wept on her grave." She was but fifteen, and it was her initiation into those Balkan politics in which, as Madame Rizoff, she was herself later to play a part.
We shouted our last "Zhivio!" The play was over. Petar was King and the Near East had entered upon a new path which led as yet none knew whither.
I noted in my diary, "Will the army, now that it has taken the bit between its teeth, be more than King Petar can manage?" In truth no greater curse can befall a land than to be ruled by its own army. A nation that chooses to be dictated to by its military has sunk low indeed.
Cetinje showed signs of relapsing into dullness. I started on a tour up country. The country I have described elsewhere, and will deal now only with the political situation.
There were no roads then over the mountains and travelling was very severe work. At every halt—for rest in the midday heat, or a cup of black coffee to stimulate me for another two or three hours on horse and on foot—the Serbian murders were the one topic. Boshko, my guide, with the latest news from Podgoritza was in great request and a proud man. Everywhere the crime was approved. The women raged against Draga, even saying "She ought to lie under the accursed stone heap!"—a reminiscence of the fact that stoning to death was actually inflicted in Montenegro in the old days, upon women for sexual immorality. Vuk Vrchevitch records a case as late as 1770. And in quite recent times a husband still, if he thought fit, would cut off the nose of his wife if he suspected her of infidelity. No man, it was explained to me cheerfully, was ever likely to make love to her again after that.
West Europe was, in 1903, quite ignorant of the state of primitive savagery from which the South Slavs were but beginning to rise. Distinguished scientists travelled far afield and recorded the head hunters of New Guinea. But the ballads of Grand Voyvoda Mirko—King Nikola of Montenegro's father—gloating over slaughter, telling of the piles of severed heads, of the triumph with which they were carried home on stakes and set around the village, and the best reserved as an offering to Nikola himself for the adornment of Cetinje; and the stripping and mutilating of the dead foe, give us a vivid picture of life resembling rather that of Dahomey, than Europe in 1860.
In the breast of every human being there is a wolf. It may sleep for several generations. But it wakes at last and howls for blood. In the breast of the South Slav, both Serb and Montenegrin, it has not yet even thought of slumbering. Montenegro approved the crime.
It was to lead to "something"—indefinite, mysterious. Serdar Jovo Martinovitch ruled in Kolashin, a strong man then, who rode the clansmen on a strong curb. He had come up there as governor about four years ago on account of the constant fighting, not only on the border, but between the Montenegrin plemena (tribes). The latter he had put a stop to. Thirty years ago he assured me the clans were in a state of savagery. His own life was very Balkan; many women figured in it; and to escape blood-vengeance he had fled—with one of them—to Bulgaria, where he had served long years in the Bulgarian Army; and had returned to Montenegro only after the affair had blown over. Of the Bulgars he spoke in the highest terms.
At Andrijevitza, to which he passed me on, great excitement reigned. Some great event was expected at no distant date. I was told that it was now impossible for me to go to Gusinje, but that next year all would be different. That they were well informed about the Bulgar rising which was about to take place in Macedonia I cannot, in the light of what followed, doubt. Prince Danilo's birthday was feted magnificently with barbaric dances by firelight, national songs and an ocean of rakija. We drank to the Prince and wished him soon on the throne of Prizren, a wish which at that time every Montenegrin expected to see soon realized. The reign of the Turk, I was told, was all but over. I remarked that this had been said for a hundred years at least and was told that the end must come some time, and that I should see it soon.
Meanwhile, the' authorities of Andrijevitza were extremely anxious to get me to go across the border. Though I was not aware of it at the time, they meant to use me to cover a spy. That the expedition was dangerous I knew. The Ipek district had scarcely been penetrated by a foreigner for fifteen years, and was a forbidden one. The danger I did not mind. My two months' liberty each year were like Judas's fabled visit to the iceberg—but they made the endless vista of grey imprisonment at home the more intolerable. And a bullet would have been a short way out. I made the expedition and gained thereby a reputation for courage which in truth I little deserved.
As I was being used for political purposes, though I did not know it, I was, of course, shown only the Great Serbian view of things. The plan was carefully laid. My guide, who was disguised, spoke Albanian and some Turkish.
At Berani, our first stopping place, just over the Turkish border, I met the first objectors to the murders—the monks at the very ancient Church of Giurgevi Stupovi and a little company consisting of a wild-looking priest clad as a peasant and with a heavy revolver in his sash, and a couple of schoolmasters very heavily depressed. They, too, had evidently expected "something" to happen soon. I gathered, in fact, that an attack on the Turk had been planned, and now with this revolution on their hands the Serbs would be able to do nothing. In the town, however, I met the nephew of Voyvoda Gavro, then Montenegro's Minister for Foreign Affairs—a decadent type of youth on vacation from Constantinople, where he was at college. For the Montenegrins, though always expressing a hatred of all things Turkish, have never missed an opportunity of sending their sons for Education—gratis—to the enemy's capital. His conversation—and he was most anxious to pose as very "modern"—showed that Constantinople is not a very nice place for boys to go to school in. He was furious with me for daring to criticize the Serbian murders. He said no one but an enemy of the Serb people would do so, and threatened to denounce me to his uncle. Leaving Berani I plunged into Albanian territory. This land, fondly called by the Serbs "Stara Srbija," Old Serbia, was in point of fact Serb only for a short period.
The Serbs, or rather their Slav ancestors, poured into the Balkan Peninsula in vast hordes in the sixth and seventh centuries and overwhelmed the original inhabitant, the Albanian. But though they tried hard, they did not succeed in exterminating him. The original inhabitant, we may almost say, never is exterminated. The Albanian was a peculiarly tough customer. He withdrew to the fastnesses of the mountains, fought with his back to the wall, so to speak, and in defiance of efforts to Serbize him, retained his language and remained persistently attached to the Church of Rome. Serbia reached her highest point of glory under Tsar Stefan Dushan. On his death in 1356, leaving no heir capable of ruling the heterogeneous empire he had thrown together in the twenty years of his reign, the rival feudal chieftains of Serbia fought with each other for power and the empire was soon torn to pieces. Albania split off from the mass almost at once, and was a separate principality under the Balsha chiefs. And from that time Albania has never again fallen completely under Serb power. The Turkish conquest crushed the Serbs and the Albanians grew in power. We cannot here detail the history, suffice it to say that in 1679 the Serbs of Kosovo, finding themselves unable to resist the advance of the Albanians and the power of the Turks, evacuated that district. Led by Arsenius, the Serb Patriarch, thousands of families emigrated into Austria, who saved the Serb people. Since then the Albanians had poured down and resettled in the land of their ancestors.
From Berani our route lay through Arnaoutluk. We passed through Rugova; nor did I know till afterwards that this was reputed one of the most dangerous districts in Turkish territory and that no European traveller had been that way for some twenty years. There was a rough wooden mosque by the wayside. We halted. The people were friendly enough and some one gave us coffee. I little thought 'that in a few years time the place would be the scene of a hideous massacre by the Montenegrins modelled on the Moslem-slaying of Vladika Danilo. We reached Ipek after some sixteen hours of very severe travel and knocked at the gates of the Patriarchia long after nightfall—the very place whose Bishop had led the retreating Serb population into Austria over two centuries before.
My arrival was a thunderbolt, both for the Patriarchia and the Turkish authorities, who had forbidden the entry of strangers into the district and closed the main routes to it, but had never imagined any one would be so crazy as to drop in over the Montenegrin frontier by way of Rugova.
The whole district was under military occupation. About thirty thousand Turkish troops were camped in the neighbourhood, and I learnt that a great deal of fighting had recently taken place. Briefly, the position was that for the past two and a half centuries the Albanians had been steadily re-occupying the lands of their Illyrian ancestors and pressing back the small remaining Serb population, and since the time of the Treaty of Berlin had been struggling to wrest autonomy from the Turks and obtain recognition as a nation. The whole of this district had been included in the autonomous Albanian state proposed and mapped out by Lord Goschen and Lord Fitzmaurice in 1880. Ipek, Jakova and Prizren were centres of the Albanian League. The British Government report of August 1880 gives a very large Albanian majority to the whole district.
"The Albanians are numerically far superior to the Serbians, who are not numerous in Kosovopolje and the Sanjak of Novibazar. The Albanian population in the vilayet of Kosovo has lately (1880) been still further increased by the accession of many thousands of refugees from districts now, in virtue of the Treaty of Berlin, in Serbian possession and which prior to the late war were exclusively inhabited by descendants of the twelve Greg tribes, which at a remote period emigrated from Upper Albania."
A fundamental doctrine of the Great Serb Idea is a refusal to recognize that history existed before the creation of the Serb Empire, or even to admit that Balkan lands had owners before the arrival of the Serbs. Nothing infuriates a "Great Serbian" more than to suggest that if he insists on appealing to history another race has a prior claim to the land, and that in any case the Great Serbia of Stefan Dushan lasted but twenty years.
In pursuance of this theory that the greater part of the Balkan Peninsula is the birthright of the Serbs (who only began coming into these lands at the earliest in the fourth century A.D.) the Serbs behaved with hideous brutality to the inhabitants of the lands they annexed in 1878, and swarms of starving and destitute persons were hunted out, a large proportion of whom perished of want and exposure.
The hatred between Serb and Albanian was increased a hundredfold, and the survivors and their descendants struggled continuously to gain complete control over the lands still theirs and to regain, if possible, those that they had lost. The adoption of Lord Fitzmaurice's plan would have spared the Balkans and possibly Europe much bloodshed and suffering.
When I arrived on the scene in the summer of 1903 the Turks had sent a large punitive expedition to enforce the payment of cattle tax and, at the command of Europe, to introduce a new "reform" policy in Kosovo vilayet.
The Albanians were well aware that the so-called reforms meant ultimately the furtherance of Russia's pan-Slav schemes; that so long as even a handful of Serbs lived in a place Russia would claim it as Serb and enforce the claim to the best of her power; that the "reforms" meant, In fact, the introduction of Serb and Russian consulates, the erection of Serb schools and churches under Russian protection, the planting of Serb colonies and ultimate annexation. Russia was actively endeavouring to peg out fresh Serb claims. The Russian Consul at Mitrovitza, M. Shtcherbina, had taken part in a fight against the Albanians and was mortally wounded, it was reported, while he was serving a gun.
Russia, in fact, having already made sure of the removal of the pro-Austrian Obrenovitches and being in close touch with Montenegro and Bulgaria was planning another coup in the Balkans. Albania was resisting it. The Turks under pressure from the Powers were striving to smooth matters down sufficiently to stave off the final crash that drew ever nearer. They arrested a number of headmen and exacted some punishment for Shtcherbina's death. Though if a consul chooses to take part in a local fight he alone is responsible for results.
I had, in fact, arrived at a critical moment. The Turkish authorities telegraphed all over the country to know what they were to do about me. My Montenegrin guide showed anxiety also and begged me on no account to reveal his origin.
From a little hill belonging to the Patriarchia I saw the widespread Turkish camp on the plain.
The Igumen and the few monks and visitors gave me the Serb point of view. Because some six centuries ago the Sveti Kralj had been crowned in the church they regarded the land as rightfully and inalienably Serb. They looked forward to the arrival of Russian armies that should exterminate all that was not Serb. Shtcherbina to them was a Christ-like man who had died to save them, and they treasured his portrait. Russia, only the year before, had insisted on planting a Consul at Mitrovitza against the wish of the Turkish Government. Serb hopes had been raised. And it was possible that his presence had in fact caused the fight.
They admitted, however, that the Turks were responsible for the state of Albania, for they prohibited the formation of Albanian schools and made progress impossible; an independent Albania would be better.
News of the deaths of Alexander and Draga had reached Ipek, but no details, for Serbian papers could only be smuggled in with great difficulty. I gathered that the murders caused some anxiety, for a great movement against the Turks was planned, and owing to the upheaval in Serbia, perhaps Serbia would not now take part. As I was English they believed that the Turks would be obliged to permit me to travel further if I pleased. But they implored me on no account if I went further afield, to take the train as all the railways were shortly to be blown up.
Meanwhile the Turkish authorities could not decide what to do about me and called me to the Konak about my passport. There I waited hours. The place was crowded with applicants for permission to travel. Half-starved wretches begged leave to go to another district in search of harvest work and were denied. The Turks were in a nervous terror and doubtless knew a crisis was at hand. As I waited in the crowd a youth called to me across the room and said in French: "It is pity you were not here a week or two ago. You could have gone to Uskub and met all the foreign correspondents. Now they have all gone. I was dragoman to The Times correspondent. He has gone too. They think it is all over and it has not yet begun." He laughed. I was terrified lest any one present should know French. The boy declared they did not.
Finally, the Pasha refused me permission to go to Jakova as I had asked. And quite rightly, for fighting was still going on there between the troops and the Albanians. I was allowed only to visit the monastery of Detchani, a few hours' ride distant. Detchani is one of the difficulties in the drawing of a just frontier. Though in a district that is wholly Albanian, it is one of the monuments of the ancient Serb Empire and contains the shrine of the Sveti Kralj, King Stefan Detchanski, who was strangled in 1336 in his castle of Zvechani, it is said, by order of his son who succeeded him as the great Tsar Stefan Dushan, and was in his turn murdered in 1356.
St. Stefan Dechansld is accounted peculiarly holy and yet to work miracles. The Church, a fine one in pink and white marble, was built by an architect from Cattaro, and shows Venetian influence. A rude painting of the strangling of Stefan adorns his shrine. I thought of the sordid details of the death of. Serbia's latest King and the old world and the new seemed very close. Except in the matter of armament, things Balkan had changed but little in over five centuries.
A Turkish officer and some Nizams were quartered at the monastery, but the few monks and students there seemed oddly enough to have more faith in a guard of Moslem Albanians who lived near. They were expecting shortly the arrival of Russian monks from Mount Athos. Russia was, in fact, planting Russian subjects there for the express purpose of making an excuse for intervention. The young Turkish officer was very civil to me and offered to give me a military escort to enable me to return to Montenegro by another route. My disguised Montenegrin guide who was pledged to hand me over safe and sound to Voyvoda Lakitch at Andrijevitza signalled to me in great anxiety. Each day he remained on Turkish territory he risked detection and the loss of his life.
I returned therefore to the Patriarchia, recovered my passport from the Pasha and was given by him a mounted gendarme to ride with me as far as Berani. This fellow, a cheery Moslem Bosniak, loaded his rifle and kept a sharp look out. And a second gendarme accompanied us till we were through the pass. And both vowed that a few months ago they wouldn't have come with less than thirty men; Albanians behind every rock and piff paff, a bullet in your living heart before you knew where you were. They wondered much that I had made the journey with only one old zaptieh. Still more, that I had been allowed to come at all.
Berani received me with enthusiasm. Nor had my cheery Turkish gendarme an idea that my guide was a Montenegrin till he took off his fez at the frontier. Then the gendarme slapped his thigh, roared with laughter and treated it as a good joke.
The said guide's relief on being once more in his own territory showed clearly what the risks had been for him.
Andrijevitza gave us quite an ovation. Countless questions as to the number and position of the Turkish Army were poured out. My guide had fulfilled his task. I was reckoned a hero. What hold the Voyvoda had over the Kaimmakam of Berani I never ascertained. But it was the Voyvoda's letter to the Kaimmakam that got me over the border. All that I gathered was that I had been made use of for political purposes and successfully come through what every one considered a very dangerous enterprise. The same people who had urged me to go now addressed me as "one that could look death in the eyes."
Had I met death, what explanation would they have offered to the questions that must have cropped up over the death of a British subject?
A number of schoolmasters had gathered in Andrijevitza for their holidays. Many of them were educated in Belgrade and these were especially of the opinion that the murder of Alexander and Draga was a splendid thing for Serbia, and when I said it might bring misfortune were not at all pleased. Even persons who at first said the murder was horrible now said since it was done it was well done. The Voyvoda and the Kapetan told me that every country in Europe had accepted King Petar except England and that the Serb Minister had been sent from London. "England," they declared, "has often been our enemy." They hoped that good, however, would result from my journey.
The whole of my return to Cetinje was a sort of triumphal progress. Jovo Martinovitch, the Serdar at Kolashin, was delighted to hear of the Ipek expedition, but admitted frankly that he had not dared propose it himself. Voyvoda Lakitch, he said, was well informed and no doubt knew the moment at which it could be safely attempted. Every place I passed through was of opinion something was about to happen soon. Next year the route to Gusinje would be open. At Podgoritza I was received by the Governor Spiro Popovitch and taken for a drive round the town.
I arrived at Cetinje in time for dinner and appeared in my usual corner. Mr. Shipley and Count Bollati hailed me at once saying that they thought I was about due. Where had I been? "Ipek," said I.
The effect on the diplomatic table was even more startling than upon Montenegro. "But the route is closed!" said every one. I assured them I had nevertheless been through it, and Mr. Shipley said if he had had any idea I was going to attempt such a thing he would have telegraphed all over the place and stopped it. At the same time he admitted, "I rather thought you were up to something," and gave me a piece of excellent advice, which I have always followed, which was "Never consult a British representative if you want to make a risky journey." Really, he was quite pleased about it and crowed over the rest of the diplomatic table, that the British could get to places that nobody else could. I received a note next morning from the Bulgarian diplomatic agent praying for an interview.
He had not been long in Cetinje, but later became one of the best known Balkan politicians. For he was Monsieur Rizoff, who, as Bulgar Minister at Berlin, played a considerable part in the Balkan politics of the great war.
He was a Macedonian Bulgar born at Resna, a typical Bulgar in build and cast of countenance, and a shrewd and clever intriguer. His excitement over my journey was great and he wanted every possible detail as to what were the Turkish forces and where they were situated. I told him that I understood a rising was planned. And he told me quite frankly that all was being prepared and a rising was to break out in Macedonia so soon as the crops were harvested.
I gathered that Rizoff himself was deeply mixed in the plot, an idea which was confirmed later on. For among the papers captured on a Bulgar comitadgi, Doreff, was a letter signed Grasdoff, describing his attempts to import arms through Montenegro, a plan he found impossible owing to the opposition of the Albanians in the territories that must be passed through. He visited Cetinje and reports: "I have spoken with M. Rizoff. With regard to the passage of men and munitions through Montenegro . . . even at the risk of losing his post he is disposed to give his assistance. But owing to the great difficulty the plan would meet in Albania we must renounce it. M. Rizoff hopes to be transferred soon to Belgrade. M. Rizoff having met M. Milakoff (PMilukoff) at Abbazia, has decided to continue the preparations for the organization until public opinion is convinced of the inutility of the (Turkish) reforms or until the term fixed—October 1905." Rizoff, in his talk with me, seemed hopeful of inducing European intervention.
Desultory fighting between Bulgar bands and Turkish troops had been going on in Macedonia throughout the year and many Bulgar peasants had fled from Macedonia into Bulgaria where fresh bands were prepared. A bad fight had taken place near Uskub, the Slav peasants of which were then recognized as Bulgars. But the Serbo-Bulgar struggle for Uskub—which, in truth, was then mainly Albanian—had begun.
Throughout Turkish territory, Greek, Serb and Bulgar pegged out their claims by the appointment of Bishops. Once a Bishop was successfully planted, a school with Serb, Greek or Bulgar masters at once sprang up and under the protection of one Great Power or another a fresh propaganda was started.
Every time a Bishop was moved by one side, it meant "Check to your King!" for the other. English Bishops talked piously of, and even prayed for "our Christian brethren of the Balkans," happily unaware that their Christian brethren were solely engaged in planning massacres or betraying the priests of a rival nationality to the Turks.
Serbia had just triumphantly cried "Check" to Bulgaria. In 1902 the Bishop of Uskub had died. The Serbs had had no Bishop in Turkish territory since the destruction of the Serb Bishopric of Ipek in 1766, which was the work of the Greek Patriarch rather than of the Turk. They now put in a claim. The Russian Vjedomosti published a learned article on the Ipek episcopate. The Porte regarded with dread the increasing power of the Bulgars. So did the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople. He of 1766 had aimed at the destruction of Slavdom. He of 1902 thought Serbia far less dangerous than Bulgaria. Firmilian was duly consecrated in June, 1902—a small straw showing that Russia had begun to blow Serbwards. She began to see she could not afford to have a powerful Bulgaria between herself and Constantinople.
At Cetinje I gathered that my jpurney to Ipek was mysteriously connected with "something" that was going to happen, and was interested to find that though the populace still heartily approved of the murder of Alexander and were filled with anger and dismay at England's rupture of diplomatic relations, the mighty of the land had realized that in public at any rate, it was as well to moderate their transports. King Nikola had been interviewed by several British and other journalists, had looked down his nose, lamented the wickedness of the Serbs and assured his interviewers that the Montenegrins were a far more virtuous people. Montenegro posed as the good boy of the Serb race, and as the gentlemen in question had not been present either at the thanksgiving in the church nor the gala performance at the Zetski Dom, they accepted the statement. Interviewing is, in fact, as yet the most efficient method by which journalism can spread erroneous reports.
I returned to London and read shortly afterwards in The Times that Macedonian troubles had settled down and recollecting that at Ipek I had learnt they had not yet begun I wrote and told The Times so. But it was far too well informed to print this statement. Had it not withdrawn its correspondent? And, as Rizoff had told me, a general Bulgar rising broke out all through Macedonia in August.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MACEDONIA, 1903-1904
THE Macedonian rising of 1903 was a purely Bulgar movement. As is invariably the case with such risings, it was ill-planned; and untrained peasants and irregular forces never in the long run have a chance against regulars. Its history has been told more than once in detail. I need only say that, instead of revolting simultaneously, one village rose after another, and the Turkish forces rode round, burning and pillaging in the usual fashion of punitive expeditions. Thousands of refugees fled into Bulgaria—thus emphasizing their nationality—and within the Bulgarian frontier organized komitadji bands, which carried on a desultory guerrilla war with the Turkish forces for some time. But it was soon obvious that, unless strongly aided by some outside Power, the rising must fail.
The most important point to notice now is that not a single one of these many revolutionaries fled to Serbia, or claimed that they were Serbs. They received arms, munitions and other help from Bulgaria, from Serbia nothing. They were rising to make Big Bulgaria, not Great Serbia. Serbia now claims these people as Serbs. She did not then extend one finger to assist them.
Milosh would not help the Greeks to obtain freedom because he did not want a large Greece. Similarly, Serbia and Greece in 1903 did nothing at all to aid the Macedonian revolutionaries. Most of us who have worked in old days to free the people from the Turkish yoke have now recognized what a farce that tale was. Not one of the Balkan people ever wanted to "free" their "Christian brethren" unless there was a chance of annexing them.
The Bulgar rising died down as winter came on and acute misery reigned in the devastated districts. In December, as one who had some experience of Balkan life, I was asked to go out on relief work under the newly formed Macedonian Relief Committee. The invitation came to me as an immense surprise and with something like despair.
I had had my allotted two months' holiday. I had never before been asked to take part in any public work, and I wanted to go more than words could express. Circumstances had forced me to refuse so many openings. I was now forty, and this might be my last chance.
The Fates were kind, and I started for Salonika at a few days' notice, travelling almost straight through. Serbia was depressed and anxious, I gathered from my fellow travellers, as we passed through it. Bishop Firmilian, whose election to the see of Uskub the Serbs had with great difficulty obtained in June 1902, had just died. The train was full of ecclesiastics going to his funeral at Uskub. Russia had aided his election very considerably. It had coincided with Russia's support of Petar Karageorgevitch to the throne of Serbia, and all was part of Russia's new Balkan plans in which Serbia was to play a leading role.
Petar was not received by Europe. Firmilian was dead. Serbia was anxious. They buried Firmilian on Christmas Day in the morning, dreading the while lest they were burying the bishopric too, so far as Serbia was concerned—and I reached Salonika that night.
The tale of the relief work I have told elsewhere. I will now touch only on the racial questions.
In Monastir I tried to buy some Serb books, for I was hard at work studying the language, and had a dictionary and grammar with me. Serbian propaganda in Monastir was, however, then only in its infancy, and nothing but very elementary school books were to be got. The Bulgars had a big school and church. If any one had suggested that Monastir was Serb or ever likely to be Serb, folk would have thought him mad—or drunk. The pull was between Greek and Bulgar, there was no question of the Serbs. There was a large "Greek" population, both in town and country, but of these a very large proportion were Vlachs, many were South Albanians, others were Slavs. Few probably were genuine Greeks. But they belonged to the Greek branch of the Orthodox Church, and were reckoned Greek in the census. Those Slavs who called themselves Serbs, and the Serb schoolmasters who had come for propaganda purposes, all went to the Greek churches.
As for the hatred between the Greek and Bulgar Churches—it was so intense that no one from West Europe who has not lived in the land with it, can possibly realize it. The Greeks under Turkish rule had been head of the Orthodox Christians. True to Balkan type, they had dreamed only of the reconstruction of the Big Byzantine Empire, and had succeeded, by hooks and crooks innumerable, in suppressing and replacing the independent Serb and Bulgar Churches.
But Russia, when she began to scheme for Pan-Slavism, had no sympathy with Big Byzantium, and was aware that when you have an ignorant peasantry to deal with, a National Church is one of the best means for producing acute Nationalism. Under pressure from Russia, who was supported by other Powers—some of whom really believed they were aiding the cause of Christianity—the Sultan in 1870 created by firman the Bulgarian Exarchate. Far from "promoting Christianity" the result of this was that the Greek Patriarch excommunicated the Exarch and all his followers, and war was declared between the two Churches. They had no difference of any kind or sort as regards doctrine, dogma, or ceremonial. The difference was, and is, political and racial. |
|
