CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1910
Ill and crippled with sciatica, but hopeless of recovery in England, I managed to get to Scutari in April 1910, hoping there to find a sun-cure, and at least to learn what was happening.
Things had gone from bad to worse. No one now believed in "Constitution." The attitude of the populace on the Sultan's accession day showed this. No reforms or improvements had as yet been even begun. People said: "We will not give money to the Turks to buy gold braid for officers and guns to kill us with."
Lobatcheff had gone to Mitrovitza to hold it as a Slav outpost. My friend, the attache, had left after having almost fought a duel with the French Consul over his bulldog. Dushan Gregovitch represented Montenegro. Italy and Austria were redoubling their efforts to win over the Albanians by showering "benefits" upon them, although each had formally agreed not to countenance the partition of Albania, and the Nationalist Albanians were making strides in spite of the efforts of enemies. At the time of the Young Turk revolution some thirty Albanian papers were being published abroad. Now, as the Constitution promised freedom of the Press, printing was going on all over Albania, and the new alphabet was universally adopted. The Albanian girls' school at Koritza was filled to overflowing. The South strove to throw off Greek influence, and at Elbasan a school for training teachers was opened with mixed Moslem and Christian staff. As the Albanian poet had sung, it was a case of:
Awake, Albanians, awake!
Let not mosques nor churches divide you.
The true religion of the Albanian is his national ideal.
Nationalism gained in Scutari by the death of the old Austrian
Archbishop, and the elevation in his place of Mgr. Serreggi, an
Albanian patriot.
Fighting was going on in Kosovo vilayet, but the Christians of Scutari firmly believed that Austria, as protector of the Catholics, would never allow the Turkish army to enter the Catholic districts. In the town the Turks pursued a foolish policy. Only one per cent, of the Christians understood Turkish, and about 20 per cent, of the Moslems, and but few could read or write it. Nevertheless the Turks gave out all notices in Turkish, and the people did not even trouble to ask their meaning.
Then came a grave event. One Sunday morning my old Marko, in whose house I lodged, announced solemnly: "Last night Teresi had a terrible dream about you. To-day you will have important news from England. God grant nothing bad has happened to your noble family." I chaffed the old man, saying: "There is no post to-day!" And then came a knock at the door, and the old blue kavas from the British Consulate handed me a note from M. Summa. "I regret to inform you of the death of our beloved Sovereign, Edward VII, which I have just learnt by telegraph from Salonika." Teresi's reputation as a dreamer became immense.
King Edward VII, in a short reign, had largely contributed towards bringing Great Britain from a state of "splendid isolation" into a tangle of—to me—very doubtful associates. I wrote: "The King's death knocks out one's ideas of what sort of a position England is going to hold. . . . Poor George ascends the throne in an awfully difficult time, with internal and foreign politics both in a regular tangle. A far more difficult beginning than Edward had. For, then, we had not upset the whole balance of power in Asia and Europe by making that alliance with Japan. I always hated it. The result . . . the predominance of Germany in Europe, is going to cost us dear. And when Japan has got all she can out of us, she will turn round and bite."
And in the same week I noted: "The newly-appointed British Minister is coming here to-morrow. Thank goodness there is no acute political crisis on now, as there was when the last man came." Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont arrived, and there followed in pursuit of them a King's messenger, who bore the assent of the British Government to Prince Nikola's desire to proclaim himself king.
His position now hurt badly. The Petrovitches were the oldest Balkan dynasty, and were the lowest in rank. The Montenegrins were divided as to the desirability of the change. Prince Danilo and his set were said to favour it strongly. The thing was decided upon suddenly, and the country consented. "I expect some Power engineered it," says my diary. And soon the rumour was very certain that the step had been taken by the advice and with the agreement of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria. "Which do you love best—me or Ferdinand?" Prince Nikola had asked me suddenly, when I last visited him. "You, of course, Sire!" said I, and wondered at the time why he had Ferdinand on the brain.
That the Turkish Empire would now soon break up, was the general belief, and Kings Ferdinand and Nikola would divide the peninsula. Bulgaria would obtain her Alsace-Lorraine, Macedonia, and Nikita would reign over Great Serbia from Prizren.
Fighting continued in Kosovo vilayet. Meanwhile I was carried dangerously ill to the Austrian hospital, and lay helpless between bouts of agony and injections of morphine. The Albanians came and wept over me, and prayed for advice and help. When I was nearly screaming with pain they implored me to make an effort and write for them to the Foreign Office and the papers, for the Turkish army was approaching. I was dragged to a sitting position, managed to write two letters, and fainted with the pain. Vain agony. Nothing could break the journalistic ring which forbade any criticism of the Young Turks. A foolish policy, for it led them to believe their actions beyond criticism, and helped their undoing. The more they blundered, the more Italy, and Austria, and Russia rejoiced. They expected the Withdrawal of the international gendarmerie to send the Turks downhill with a crash. England, probably, was not guilty of withdrawing for that reason, but was much less well informed, because more sparsely represented, than the other Powers. And we were already tangled in Russia's plans, and did not know what they were.
The Turks sent over increased forces and artillery into Kosovo vilayet, and Scutari learnt with dismay that in spite of the valour of the Kosovo men they were being forced back and back, and the Turkish army was approaching Scutari.
Prenk Pasha, who had been made a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, had promised the Turks safe-conduct through Mirdita. This was in strict conformity with the policy explained to me by the Abbot Premi Dochi in 1904, viz. that the Turk must be maintained until Albania was sufficiently organized to stand alone, otherwise the Slav, the more relentless foe, would fall upon her. The other Catholic tribes were wildly dismayed, and the headmen ran from one consulate to another begging advice. None was given them. They were far too poorly armed to resist, and in July 1910 the Turkish army entered Scutari and ordered the populace to give up its arms. They did so quietly. The Christians had few to give. The Moslems feared, by rising, to provoke an Austrian intervention.
I was too ill to be taken out to see what was going on, and, to my great disappointment, was still unable to move when the celebration on the occasion of Nikita's elevation to kingship took place in August.
Montenegro had raised a loan from England the year before, and had expended the whole of it in making electric light in Cetinje and building a Government house of superlative ugliness, and so vast that it seemed obviously intended to administer a much larger territory than Montenegro.
Scutari was excited about Montenegrin doings. Foreign visitors flocked to Cetinje to assist at the fete. Bulgaria was represented by King Ferdinand himself, Serbia, only by the Crown Prince, and he, said rumour, decided to come only at the last minute. Conclusions about a Bulgar-Montenegrin combine were freely drawn. One point both Montenegrins and Albanians agreed upon, "A king must have a kingdom. The Powers would not otherwise have allowed him to be king. Soon there will be war!"
While still in hospital I received an English paper, with illustrations of the launch of a Dreadnought. The doctor, a Dalmatian Slav, looked at them sadly. "Why do you do these things?" he asked. "You are forcing on war. You will ruin Austria. We admire everything English, except your Dreadnoughts. Each time you build one, we of the Triple Alliance are forced to build one too. We Austrians have no colonies, and never want any. We need no navy. We are already overtaxed, and the breaking-point must come one day. You eat us up with your terrible wealth. To my mind all Europe is mad. We have one common danger—the peoples of Africa and Asia, who are developing rapidly. If we want to save European civilization we must federate against the common foe. If ever there is a war in Europe —and God forbid—it will be the suicide of the white races. They will fight to extermination, and the day of the coloured people will dawn. We shall deserve our fate. It will be the result of our own folly."
Where he is now I know not. His words come back to me always. After three months I emerged from the hospital, well but weak, into a dismayed and depressed Scutari. The Turks were trying to hamper nationalism by ordering Albanian to be printed in Arabic characters, and making Turkish compulsory in the schools. They had roused fierce anger, too, by publicly flogging some offenders, a punishment regarded in Albania as so shameful and humiliating that it bred sympathy for the victim and hatred for the inflicter. Has it, perhaps, the same result in India and Egypt?
Our next news was that Montenegro's feelings were woefully hurt. Nikola had Just been made king—but Montenegro was the only state in Europe on which the special mission to announce the death of King Edward and the accession of King George had not called. Montenegro had spent much on sending Prince Danilo to attend the funeral, and Princess Militza is distantly related to Queen Mary. The omission rankled very badly. It would be interesting to know who suggested that King Nikola should be left out.
Having achieved kingship, Nikola soon began to act. So soon as the Turks had persuaded the Albanians to disarm, they began to make a census of all fit for military service. This the Christians swore they would never give, and were furious with Austria for not intervening. The Moslems, too, vowed they would not serve outside Albania. And before any one knew what was going to happen a number of the Gruda tribe went over the border into Montenegro. Numbers of the Hoti and Shkreli followed. Scutari was astounded. The Austrians were furious, and vowed Russia had paid for it. The Turks clapped on further anti-Albanian laws, and most of the papers were suppressed. The Koritza girls' school was closed, and news of arrests came from all over the country. The Turks circulated copies of the Arabic alphabet, and ordered its use, and the Albanians burnt them.
To escape the winter I went to Egypt, nor will I detail my six months' stay there, except to note that it entirely changed my ideas about the Austrian occupation of Bosnia. My diary towards the close of my stay notes: "I wouldn't be a native under British rule at any price. They may 'do a lot of good to you,' but, dear God! they do let you know their contempt for you, and drive your inferiority into you. Any one with any spunk would rather go to hell his own way than be chivied to heaven by such odiously superior beasts. . . . The Moslems are not grateful for 'benefits' they do not want, and the Christians are discontented and annoyed, as in Bosnia." During the winter I heard from Albania that a fresh revolt was planning; that General Garibaldi had promised arms and men, and that it would break out in the spring. Before leaving Egypt for Europe I stayed at Alexandria, and saw my friend the attache, who was now a full-blown Austrian consul, and retracted the criticisms I had made to him on Austria in Bosnia.
At Constantinople, I learnt that the Albanian revolution had broken out. Popovitch, the Montenegrin Minister, complained bitterly that his Government gave him no information, and left him to answer the Turks' charges of complicity as best he could. He was so anxious about the affair that it was obvious Montenegro was "dipped" in whatever was happening, and he begged me to go straight to the scene of action.