THE STORY OF SERVIA
Of these varied states Servia is of especial interest from its immediate relation to the European contest. Its ancient history, also, possesses much of interest. Minor in extent at present, it was once an extensive empire. Under its monarch, Stephen Dushan (1336–56), it included the whole of Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, Bulgaria, and Northern Greece, leaving little of the Balkan region beyond its borders. In 1389 its independence ended as a result of the battle of Kossova, it becoming tributary to the conquering empire of the Turks. In another half century it became a province of Turkey in Europe, and so remained for nearly two hundred years.
Its succeeding history may be rapidly summarized. In 1718 Austria won the greater part of it, with its capital, Belgrade, from Turkey, but in 1739 it was regained by the Turks. Barbarous treatment of the Christian population of Servia by its half-civilized rulers led to a series of insurrections, ending in 1812 in its independence, by the terms of the Treaty of Bukarest. The Turks won it back in 1813, but in 1815, under its leader, Milosh, its complete independence was attained.
After the fall of Plevna in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, Servia joined its forces to those of Russia, and by the Treaty of Berlin it obtained an accession of territory and full recognition by the Powers of Europe of its independence. In 1885 a national rising took place in Eastern Roumelia, a province of Turkey, which led to the Turkish governor being expelled and union with Bulgaria proclaimed. Servia demanded a share of this new acquisition of territory and went to war with Bulgaria, but met with a severe defeat. When, in 1908, Austria annexed the former Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the people of Servia were highly indignant, these provinces being largely inhabited by people of the Servian race. The exasperation thus caused is of importance, especially as augmented by the agency of Austria in preventing Servia from obtaining a port on the Adriatic after the Balkan war of 1912–13. The seething feeling of enmity thus engendered had its final outcome in the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince Ferdinand in 1914, and the subsequent invasion of Servia by the armies of Austria.
We have here spoken of the stages by which Servia gradually won its independence from Turkey and its recognition as a full-fledged member of the European family of nations. There are several others of the Balkan group which similarly won independence from Turkey and to the story of which some passing allusion is desirable.
How Greece won its independence has been already told. Another of the group, the diminutive mountain state of Montenegro, much the smallest of them all, has the honor of being the only section of that region of Europe that maintained its independence during the long centuries of Turkish domination. Its mountainous character enabled its hardy inhabitants to hold their own against the Turks in a series of deadly struggles. In 1876–78 its ruler, Prince Nicholas, joined in the war of Servia and Russia against Turkey, the result being that 1,900 square miles was changed from a principality into a kingdom, Prince Nicholas gaining the title of King Nicholas. A second acquisition of territory succeeded the Balkan War of 1913, the adjoining Turkish province of Novibazar being divided between it and Servia.