Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle

by M. E. Durham

CHAPTER TEN.

MURDER WILL OUT

I ARRIVED in Cetinje with a Turkish trooper's saddle and a pair of saddle-bags that contained some flintlock pistols and some beautiful ostrich feathers given me by the Mutasarrif of Elbasan and not much else but rags.

The news that I had come right through Albania excited Cetinje vastly. Every English tourist who wanted to go to Scutari was warned by the Montenegrins that it was death to walk outside the town; that murders took place every day in the bazar; any absurd tale, in fact, to blacken the Albanians. The Montenegrins were not best pleased at my exploit, and full of curiosity.

I patched my elbows, clipped the ragged edge of my best skirt, and was then told by Vuko Vuletitch that the Marshal of the Court was waiting below to speak with me.

I descended and found the gentleman in full dress. It was a feast day.

We greeted one another.

"His Royal Highness the Prince wishes to speak with you!" said he with much flourish. "He requests you will name an hour when it is convenient for you to come to the Palace."

It was the first time the Prince had noticed me, I was highly amused, and replied:

"I can come now if His Royal Highness pleases!"

The Marshal of the Court eyed me doubtfully and hesitated. "I can wash my hands," said I firmly, "and that is all; I have no clothes but what I have on." My only other things were in the wash, and I had repaired myself so far as circumstances allowed. The Marshal of the Court returned with the message that His Royal Highness would receive me at once "as a soldier."

I trotted obediently off with him. We arrived at the Palace. It was a full-dress day, and the Montenegrins never let slip an occasion for peacocking. The situation pleased me immensely. The Marshal himself was in his very best white cloth coat and silken sash, gold waistcoat, and all in keeping. Another glittering functionary received me and between the two I proceeded upstairs. At the top of the flight is a large full-length looking-glass, and for the first time for four months I "saw myself as others saw me." Between the two towering glittering beings was a small, wiry, lean object, with flesh burnt copper-colour and garments that had never been anything to boast of, and were now long past their prime. I could have laughed aloud when I saw the Prince in full-dress with rows of medals and orders across his wide chest, awaiting me. It is a popular superstition, fostered by newspapers in the pay of modistes, that in order to get on it is necessary to spend untold sums on dress. But in truth if people really want to get something out of you they do not care what you look like. Nor will any costume in the world assist you if you have nothing to say.

The Prince conducted me to an inner room, greeted me politely, begged me to be seated and then launched into a torrent of questions about my previous years journey to Ipek. He seemed to think that my life had not been worth a para, and that the Rugova route was impossible. "Do you know, Mademoiselle, that what you did was excessively dangerous?"

"Sire," said I, "it was your Montenegrins who made me do it." He made no reply to this, but lamented that for him such a tour was out of the question. And of all things he desired to see the Patriarchia at Ipek and the Church of Dechani and the relics of the Sveti Kralj. He had been told I had secured photographs of these places. If so, would I give him copies?

I promised to send him prints from London. He thanked me, and there was a pause. I wondered if this was what I had been summoned for, and if I now ought to go. Then Nikita looked at me and suddenly began: "I think, Mademoiselle, that you are acquainted with my son-in-law, King Petar of Serbia."

Dear me, thought I, this is delicate ground. "I have not that honour, Sire," I said. Now how far dare I go? I asked myself. Let us proceed with caution. "I was in Serbia, Sire," I continued boldly, "during the lifetime of the—er—late King Alexander." Nikita looked at me. I looked at Nikita. Then he heaved a portentous sigh, a feat for which his huge chest specially fitted him.

"A sad affair, was it not, Mademoiselle?" he asked. And he sighed again.

Now or never, thought I, is the time for kite-flying. I gazed sadly at Nikita; heaved as large a sigh as I was capable of, and said deliberately: "Very sad, Sire—but perhaps necessary!"

The shot told. Nikita brought his hand down with a resounding smack on his blue-knickerbockered thigh and cried aloud with the greatest excitement: "Mon Dieu, but you are right, Mademoiselle! A thousand times right! It was necessary, and it is you alone that understand. Return, I beg you, to England. Explain it to your Foreign Office—to your politicians—to your diplomatists!" His enthusiasm was boundless and torrential. All would now be well, he assured me. Serbia had been saved. If I would go to Belgrade all kinds of facilities would be afforded me.

I was struck dumb by my own success. A reigning Sovereign had given himself away with amazing completeness. I had but dangled the fly and the salmon had gorged it. Such a big fish, too. Nikita, filled with hopes that the result of this interview would be the resumption <of diplomatic relations between England and Serbia, presented me with a fine signed photograph of himself, summoned the Marshal of the Court and instructed him to have it conveyed to the hotel. It was not etiquette, it appeared, for me to carry such a burden myself. The Interview was over.

It was abundantly clear that, in spite of all he had said to journalists, the old man heartily approved of the manner of the death of the last of the Obrenovitches, and had been "behind the scenes" of it.

I had many subsequent interviews with Nikita, but though I strewed many baits, never again caught him out so completely. Some people think that Foreign Affairs can be successfully carried on by Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State who speak nothing but English. I submit that the above information could never have been extracted through an interpreter. For an interpreter gives the other party time to think.

By the end of a week I was back in London. It was not quite a year since the death of Alexander. Nikita had shown plainly that he regarded the event as a very important step in Serb history. And he wanted me to go to Belgrade. But to me the situation was rather obscure. I knew Montenegro was unpopular in Serbia. Perhaps Nikita did not.

For purposes of their own the Montenegrins had risked my life —according to their own statements—by sending me to Ipek. True, I did not then set any value whatever on my life, so was not so brave by a long way as they imagined, but all the same they had had no right to do it. If I went to Belgrade at all, it should not be for an unknown purpose and as emissary of Nikita.

Meanwhile, King Petar was necessarily entirely in the hands of the Pretorian guard, which had put him on the throne and could send him after Alexander if he did not please them. They soon occupied high positions. Colonel Maschin, who had himself helped kill his sister-in-law Draga, was made head of the General Staff, and Colonel Damian Popovitch, the leader of the gang, who has since become notorious for atrocities, even in the Balkans, was given the command of the Belgrade-Danube Division, and King Petar obediently signed an amended Constitution, which greatly curtailed his own power. An attempt on the part of certain officers to resist the regicides was crushed, and several were imprisoned. Serbia was, and remained, under military rule, the object of which was the reconstruction of Great Serbia. The Serbo-Bulgar question rapidly became acute. Prince Ferdinand met King Petar informally in Nish railway station. In October 1904, King Petar visited Sofia. The visit was a failure. Prince Ferdinand was in favour of an autonomous Macedonia. The Serb Press would not hear of such a thing. Pashitch, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared that such an autonomy would injure Serbia and be all in favour of Bulgaria. Simitch, diplomatic agent at Sofia, insisted that under such an autonomy Bulgarian annexation was concealed and should that take place, the Serbs would fight till either Serbia or Bulgaria was destroyed. Both men thus admitted that Macedonia was not Serb. But they wanted Bulgar aid to crush the Albanian, in order that Serbia might take Albanian territory. "Heads I win; tails you lose." Bulgaria was to gain nothing. Serbia meant to be top dog. The Serbian Press attacked Prince Nikola so violently that an indignation meeting was held at Cetinje and the populace crowded outside the palace and shouted "Zhivio." The tug between Petrovitch and Karageorgevitch had begun. The regicides had not ended the Obrenovitches to be baulked by the Petrovitches.

A stealthy campaign against Prince Nikola now began, which emanated from Belgrade and had, I am inclined to believe, Russian support.

A ludicrous episode was the arrival in London of Prince Albert Ghika, a Roumanian, who announced himself to the Press as a claimant to the Albanian throne, and was taken seriously even by some quite respectable journals. It was indeed bad luck for him that he timed his visit to correspond with my return from Albania, for I was able to state that, far from being accepted by the whole nation, I had never even heard his name mentioned. In a very amusing interview I had with him I ascertained that he did not know a word of the language of his adopted country. His plans were grandiose, and included Constantinople as capital. "Pourquoi pas?" he asked. It would prevent the Great Powers from quarrelling over it, and therefore make for peace! His curled mustachios, his perfumes, his incomparable aplomb, his airs of a "Serene Highness" formed a magnificent stock-in-trade. But even the fact that he offered me a magnificent salary to be Maid of Honour or Lady-in-Waiting (I forget which) at the Court of Albania did not persuade me to espouse his cause, which disappeared into thin air so soon as the newspapers had a fresh sensation.

Nevertheless Albert Ghika hung around the back doors of the Balkans for some time. It was only in Albania that he was unknown.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

1905

Coming events cast their shadows before.—CAMPBELL.

This holiday was eventful. On the steamer I was addressed politely by an Albanian who had read my name on my bag. He said he had seen me a week before in Venice, and proved it by describing my companions. Said calmly he had purposely shipped on the same boat, knew all about me, but preferred to be known himself as "the Egyptian." He was a storehouse of tales of political intrigue, and yarned till near midnight on the deck as we slid through the phosphorescent sea. Of Ghika and his doings he was well informed. All Ghikas, he said, suffered badly from the same incurable complaint—a hole in the pocket—a disease, alas, common to many other honest men! At any rate Albert Ghika's claim to the Albanian throne had obtained him a rich bride, which was always something. That he really expected to mount that throne was in the highest degree improbable, for he was no fool. "How much has the lady?" I could not enlighten him. "How the English journals accepted him amazes me! But they gave him a reclame enorme. And he had not a sou. Now he has some gold. But no one in Albania knows him, and he has no party there." Followed tales of another "celebrity," Lazarevitch, who claimed descent from Tsar Lazar of Kosovo fame and was, according to "the Egyptian," the finest intriguer in Europe: "not a plot has happened in which he has not had, if not his index, his little finger. He played a large part in the Dreyfus case. And, like Ghika, he has married a rich wife, Only once has he been taken in, and that was by Shaban. You know Shaban? Shaban was really called Dossi. He was employed by Cook in Egypt as a dragoman, and dismissed from that service doubtless for good reasons. He dressed himself in a Gheg costume, got an introduction to Lazarevitch, and said he was an Albanian Bey who wanted to make a Serbo-Albanian alliance against Bulgar pretensions. Lazarevitch jumped at this. The first time he was ever taken in. He gave Shaban several hundred pounds. Shaban had a friend who was a tailor. Faik Bey, who was in London, saw Shaban and denounced him as an impostor. The tailor ran away to Greece with all the money, and was at once arrested there. So Shaban got nothing. Why did the Greeks arrest the tailor? Because of the English gold of course. Probably he was guilty of something or other too. But they would not have troubled about it but for the gold. They got that." He out-Antonied Hope and made Phroso tame compared to the real Balkans. Much more he told and much proved true. But he was obviously a dangerous travelling companion, and when he told me he proposed passing some days with me in the Bocche di Cattaro, I abruptly changed my plan of staying there, hailed a Montenegrin carriage which was waiting on the quay at Cattaro and drove straight to Cetinje.

Later, I received from Paris a gilt-edged letter with a Royal crown upon it from Aladri Kastrioti, the elderly and amiable gentleman who claimed descent from Skenderbeg and toyed with the idea of ascending the Albanian throne himself. He had, in fact, a considerable following in the Northern mountains, for the name of Skenderbeg was one to conjure with, and the Turkish Government prohibited the sale of his picture post cards. He wrote that his secretary, "the Egyptian," had reported his success in making my acquaintance and begged that on my return I would meet him in Paris and discuss matters of importance. This invitation I never accepted.

Cetinje I found bubbling over Albert Ghika. He had come with such good letters of introduction that the Prince had appointed Matanovitch as a sort of guard of honour to him. But when it became apparent that he meant to use Montenegro as a safe spot whence to make trouble across the border, and even began to scatter picture post cards of the future King and Queen of Albania, he was asked to leave the country. Matanovitch was very much chaffed about his share in the expedition.

Orthodox Easter was due. I was told that having had an audience last year it was correct for me to telegraph Easter greetings to Prince Nikola, who was in his winter quarters at Rijeka. In reply came an official intimation that I should call on him at three o'clock next day. I was met by an officer of the Court and taken to the audience. The old man was in the doorway when I arrived, and was very friendly. He was, I fancy, bored to death at Rijeka, and glad of a visitor from the great world outside. He led me into a small room and insisted on my taking a very large chair, evidently his own seat, while he sat down on one much too small for him, and began very vividly to tell me of his first fight at Vuchidol in 1876 and of the great battle of Grahovo where twelve of his relatives had lost their heads. He was very lively, and there was something extraordinarily old-world, even mediaeval, about him. I felt I was in a by-gone century—at latest with Rob Roy. We must eat together he said, and we had an odd meal of ham, hardboiled eggs, bread and weak tea into which he hospitably insisted on putting five large lumps of sugar with his Royal fingers. He pressed me to eat also the wing of a fowl, but as it was but 3 p.m. this was quite impossible for me. So after hoarse house-keeping whispers to his man, a bottle of Marsala was produced and we drank healths. He questioned me about my Albanian experiences and roared with laughter. He said the Albanians would certainly put me to ransom some day, and promised himself to contribute handsomely. He dug in the pockets of his capacious breeches and fished out some beautifully decorated Easter eggs a peasant had just given him, and presented one to me. Of his people he spoke as though they were all little children. He meant well by them. Truly. But so do many parents, who forget their children are grown up. He meant them to go his way, not theirs. A fatal error. He was very anxious to know how much money I had been paid for my book, and was as inquisitive about my pecuniary situation as the most upcountry of his subjects, and hoped the book would bring hosts of wealthy tourists to the land. I stirred him up by telling him that the Albanians intended some day to make a state larger than Montenegro and take back Antivari and Podgoritza.

"Let them come!" said the old man stoutly. His eyes twinkled and he laughed while he clasped his revolver, confessing he would not be averse to a little war—but there was Europe to be considered. Meanwhile I was to be sure and go to see Grahova and Vuchidol. After a good three-quarters of an hour's talk he saw me to the door and shouted good-bye from the doorstep.

At Nyegushi I engaged as guide one Krsto, recommended me in 1903 at Andrijevitza by a botany professor from Prague, and while our start was preparing went with Kapetan Gjuro Vrbitza and another officer by a track to the mountain's edge whence we could look directly down upon Cattaro. A gun emplacement was made there later. The two Montenegrins amused themselves by hurling stones into Austrian territory—feeling ran then strongly against Austria. For the first time I heard the song:

Franz Josef da Bog ti ubio. Ti si strashno zlo uchinio! (Franz Josef, may God strike thee dead. Thou hast wrought terrible evil.)

Russia was still madly struggling with Japan. It was the Tsar's own fault, said popular opinion. Prince Nikola had offered to send a large Montenegrin army and he had declined it. Consequently only nineteen volunteers, including two of Krsto's own relatives, had gone to Russia's aid. Otherwise "Portartur" would never have fallen. Krsto's cousin was engineer on one of Rozhdjestvcnski's ships. Every one believed England had tried to Sink them by concealing Japanese torpedo boats among the fishing fleet. They, however, kindly absolved me from complicity in the affair, mainly because I had been to Ipek.

France, as Russia's ally, had sprung into high favour and was contemplating the erection of a "nouveau art" Legation. And the new French Minister's little boy put his hands behind his back when introduced to me, and said: "I cannot shake hands with you, Mademoiselle, till you assure me you are not the friend of the Yellow Monkeys." Thus are peace and goodwill taught to children in the "civilized" lands of West Europe.

I started for Vuchidol, which the Prince had expressly desired me to visit, by way of Grahovo. Each village knew of my ride to Ipek, and received me with enthusiasm. Each told the same tale. The rising planned to take place throughout the Balkans in 1904 had been stopped by the misfortunes of the Russo-Japanese War. Montenegro was aghast at the duration of the war, and her faith in Russia as a God Almighty was badly shaken.

Feeling ran high against Bulgaria, for a rumour, started, it was said, by Chedo Miyatovitch, declared that England had promised Constantinople to Prince Ferdinand, and this would interfere with the reconstruction of Great Serbia, which was to be made at all costs. We little thought then the stupendous price the world would pay for it!

There was some dread lest, Russia being now occupied in the Far East, Austria should move. On the way we picked up an old man of the Banyani tribe, over six feet, and hook-nosed. He pointed out landmarks with his long chibouk, carried an old flintlock, and seemed to live in terror of enemies. "Golden pobratim!" he said earnestly to Krsto, "dear brother, listen! My house is but two hours from the frontier. The Austrians can come. Thank God I have this gun! The Tsar of Russia should send plenty of soldiers, then we could live in safety." Nor could we reassure him. He was going to Cetinje to beg the Gospodar to write to the Tsar for troops. "May God slay me, dear brother, but the clanger is great." I stood him a drink and he went tracking over the mountains Cetinje-wards with his antique weapon.

We went on through a land the filth and poverty of which Is unimaginable to those who have never left England. The sterile waterless rocks make it impossible to live with any decency. The worst English slum is luxury in comparison. Barely enough water to drink. None to wash in. One day I had nothing but dirty melted snow out of a hole. Vermin swarmed and no one worried about them. "If we had only as many gold pieces as lice," said folk cheerfully, "this would be the richest land in Europe." The population, in truth, was probably better off in Turkish times, when it lived by sheep-stealing and raiding caravans. Montenegro has never been self-supporting, and since frontier raids were stopped the chief trade of the people had been smuggling tobacco and coffee into Austria. Krsto and his relative were keen smugglers, and knew every nook in the Bocche di Cattaro. Now, in return for various works that she was to do, Italy had been given the tobacco monopoly and a duty was imposed. Montenegro was furious. The vigilance of the Austrian police had made it hard enough to earn a living before. This made this worse. Death to the Italians! God slay Austria! And Russia actually looking on and doing nothing.

We arrived one evening at Crkvitza, near the Austrian frontier. A dree hole; a han filthy beyond all words; no horse fodder, the Kapetan absent and his secretary drunk; a lonely schoolhouse to which some fifty children descended daily from the surrounding mountains. To spare me the horrors of the han, the schoolmaster kindly offered to put me up. But even his house swarmed with bugs and ticks. I rose very early next morning, saddled and packed, and was about to flee from the place, when the secretary came triumphantly waving a telegram and told me I was under arrest. The drink-fuddled creature, thinking to "cut a dash" during his chief's absence, had wired to the police at Nikshitch, "A man dressed as a woman has come from across the Austrian frontier." The reply said, "Detain him till further orders." The telegraph station was eight hours' march distant, but he had sent some one in haste on horseback. There was a terrible row. The populace was on my side. My British passport was, of course, useless. Krsto thought his honour impugned, and I feared he would shoot. Might I return under armed escort to the village of the telegraph office where they knew me? No. All I was allowed to do was to send a man on foot with a telegram for the Minister for Foreign Affairs and await the reply. So I was interned for nearly twenty-four hours in the han and spent the night in a filthy hole with a man, a boy, a woman, a quantity of pigeons, and swarms of lice and bugs. When the reply came from Voyvoda Gavro saying I was free to go where I pleased, the secretary was flabbergasted. It sobered him, and he was afraid of what he had done. I went on to Vuchidol as I had promised, though the Prince little knew what he was letting me in for.

The affair excited Cetinje wildly. Before I left every one had been lamenting that there was now no English Minister in Montenegro. I had been prayed, by Dushan Gregovitch and others, to write to The Times on the subject, to arouse Parliament, and somehow or other get England represented in the country. Now the cry was changed: "God be praised," cried they fervently, "there is no British Minister in Cetinje." "Thanks be to God, there is not even a British Consul." Voyvoda Gavro put his head out of "Foreign Affairs," which was then a cottage in the main street, and shouted for explanations. The dismay was comical. Early next morning an officer pursued me in the street and said the Prince wanted to see me, at once. He was sitting on the top of the steps as he was used to do before the palace was altered, and he too seemed quite overwhelmed with the international complication. Krsto had already given the police a highly coloured account.

The secretary of Crkvitza, the Prince hastened to assure me, would be punished. I said that if he were punished the result would be that when a real spy arrived he would Hot be arrested. For me the affair was a mere travel episode, not worth troubling about.

Then came the crux. The Prince was terrified lest I should write to The Times and shatter his golden dreams of wealthy tourists. The whole Montenegrin Government trembled before the possibility of such a catastrophe. I promised cheerfully not to write to any paper at all. |Nor till now have I mentioned the affairs.

So the matter was settled, to the obvious relief of poor old Nikita, who was most grateful and seemed much surprised that I required no vengeance.

I started again, this time for Nikshitch and the Durmitor, with the intention of going into Turkish territory if possible.

At Rijeka I was taken to the small-arms factory on the river, the primitive machinery being worked by water power. Here were men busy fitting new stocks to old rifles, Russian ones. I was told that one was being prepared for every man in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. When all were ready they would be smuggled in. I was taken aback at this, but found when playing the phonograph in the evening to a large party, that the notion of a not distant war with Austria accompanied by a great Balkan rising was generally accepted. Still more was I surprised to hear talk against the Prince. He and his sons were accused of taking all the best land and doing nothing with it. And the question of the tobacco regie raged. Podgoritza I found greatly changed. The outer world had rushed in on it. The tobacco factory dominated the town. "God willing, we shall burn it down!" said the populace cheerfully. True, it employed many hands, but they complained the pay was low, though they admitted that the girls had never earned anything before. In truth, regular work was a new thing in Montenegro. The end of the days of indefinite coffee- and rakia-drinking and recounting of past battles was now approaching. The middle ages were leaping at one bound into the twentieth century, and the Montenegrin was angry and puzzled.

The Italians had undertaken to construct a railway, quays, and harbour works, and offered fair wages for workmen. The Montenegrins demanded fantastic payment and imagined that by standing out they would get it. To their astonishment the Italians imported gangs of far better workmen and finished the work. Then the Montenegrins cursed the Italians and hated them bitterly. Even Montenegrin officers openly boasted that they did not know the price of the regie tobacco as they smoked only contraband, and feeling ran so high that the Italian Monopol buildings at Antivari were attacked and damaged.

At Podgoritza I met again the Albanian coachman Shan, who had served me very faithfully on my previous visits. He took me to the house of his family. A striking contrast to the Montenegrin houses, it was spick and span and even pretty, for the Albanian has artistic instincts, whereas the Montenegrin has none. Left to himself, his taste is deplorable.

Further signs of change in the land soon showed themselves. Rijeka had already grumbled. At Danilovgiati I was at once approached by a youth, who proudly showed me a Serbian paper containing his portrait and verses by himself. He was lately come from Belgrade, where he was a student, one of the many who have there been made tools of by unscrupulous political intriguers. He indignantly inveighed against the poverty of Montenegro and ascribed every evil to the Prince. I suggested that the Montenegrins themselves were among the laziest on God's earth, and could with energy do very much more with their land. But he blamed "the Government" for everything. No learning, no progress, he declared, was possible. You could not even import the books you wanted. He hurled his accusations broadcast and then, for he took his literary qualifications very seriously, sat down and wrote a verse about me after considerable labour and much sprawling over the table.

Danilovgrad was the home of another reformer, Dr. Marusitch, a Montenegrin who had but recently returned from Manchuria after many years' service as a surgeon in the Russian Army. A wild, enthusiastic creature—good-natured, well-meaning and indiscreet. For Montenegro he was rich. He had just married an extremely beautiful young woman, and the hospitality of the two was unbounded. He at once asked me to stay six months as his guest and write, with his aid, the standard book on Montenegro. Like all who had lived in Russia, he was a hard drinker and tipped down alcohol in alarming quantities. He was a strange mixture of the old world and the new. Took me to see the grave of Bajo Radovitch, who fell in 1876 after having cut off fifteen Turkish heads; admired the bloody feat, but blamed Germany for keeping up militarism. He had no opinion at all of the Montenegrin Government, and poured out a torrent of plans for its reform. He was all for peace, he said, and wanted to rearrange all the world—which badly needed it. I little thought what would be his fate when I wished him goodbye, and promised to look him up next year.

On the road to Nikshitch we came up with the military wagons carrying weapons, mainly revolvers and sword bayonets up-country for distribution. Russia had sent a revolver for each man in the country, and great was the rejoicing. Russia, when she re-armed her forces, usually bestowed the old weapons lavishly on Montenegro. Artillery was soon to follow.

We left the road and struck up-country towards Durmitor, along with a string of pack-horses laden with the Russian weapons which went with an armed escort. By the way we passed two stones recording recent murders, showing that blood feuds were not yet extinct.

At Zhabljak, Durmitor, I spent two amusing days seeing the distribution of arms. Men flocked in from all parts, were delighted with their new toys, and Russia leapt up in every one's estimation. No ammunition was served out for, as an officer remarked, "It would all be wasted." They conversed on blood and battle and clicked their new revolvers. "How we should like to go over and try them on the Turks," they said. "But we dare not cross the border because of the Powers."

Two chetas (battalions) were armed and had left when a bugle sounded of a sudden. "That means third cheta assemble!" shouted Krsto. All rushed out. Sure enough a telegram had arrived saying "The Turks are over the border! Mobilize at once!"

Every one was delighted. The men hustled into their great-coats. The women stuffed bread and a bottle of rakia into their torbitzas. The officers saddled their own horses, and in a very short time the third cheta was drawn up in line on the hill-top by the church in marching order. The commandant made a speech. They were to behave as Montenegrin heroes. They were not to fire a shot till the word was given, and above all they were to do nothing that would "look crooked in the eyes of Europe." They were a wild lot, in every kind of ragged garment. Had had a few months' drill, so marched in step for the first twenty yards. Then they broke rank, howled a war cry and rushed over the hill like a pack of wolves on the trail, firing their rifles as they went. Their officer followed on horseback and as he topped the brow, turned in his saddle and emptied his revolver over our heads. We sat up all night, every one wild for war. Bandages and carbolic arrived on a mule. There was in fact some fighting on the other side of the border between Albanians and Serbs near Bijelopolje. War, of course, did not ensue. But for some days the frontier was all lined with troops.

Meanwhile I wanted to go on to Plevlje in Turkish territory, and had to wait till the local governor thought safe to let me pass. While waiting I heard here, too, more rumours about the Prince. He was accused of having poisoned the Minister of Justice, who had died suddenly after dining with him. The dead man's family lived here. They said an Austrian doctor had said it was not poison. But there was much talk about it, and folk seemed unconvinced. I never learnt the truth of it. The route at length being open, we crossed the swift Tara at the bottom of a deep gorge on a most primitive ferry of seven planks lashed together in a triangle, and the Turkish gendarmerie on the opposite bank furnished guide and horses. Krsto had to leave his revolver behind, and having never in his life been out without one, was as nervous as a cat and saw brigands in every bush. At which I laughed.

Plevlje then was a strange sight. On one side were modern up-to-date Austrian houses with a park, smart barracks and an inn. On the hills behind it in immense letters of white stone were the initials of Franz Josef. The opposite side of the town was occupied by the Turkish Army, wonderfully smart, as if in competition with Austria, and a Crescent marked the hill on that side. Between the two lay the native town and bazar.

The local Turkish Governor was an Albanian, Suliman Pasha. He was delighted to have an English visitor, explained to me the difficulty of his position, with enemy lands, Austria, Montenegro and Serbia on three sides of the Sanjak, all intriguing to obtain it, and enemy soldiers quartered in the town. Austria he was confident was preparing to move shortly. He believed that even then they had more troops in the Sanjak than was allowed by treaty.

He pressed me to continue my journey to Mitrovitza and to Prizren, where the Russians were, he said, stirring up trouble. But the strict time limit of my holiday made this impossible. The result of the Murzsteg arrangement was, according to him, that Austria and Russia regarded the Peninsula as to be shortly theirs, and were working hard to extend their spheres of influence. Each, under the so-called reform schemes, had put their gendarmerie in the districts they could work from best. They had put England in an unimportant place. England ought to have insisted on being on the frontiers, then the importation of arms could have been prevented. As it was, Austria and Russia were both smuggling arms in by means of their gendarmerie. Russia wanted to provoke a rising of Christians in order to rush in "to save the Christians." Austria wanted to foment differences between Moslem and Catholic, and, being nearest to the spot, hoped Europe would again request her to "restore order" as in Bosnia. "Then she will be one day's march nearer Salonika," said the Pasha. I believe his statements were correct.

I had an introduction to one of the leading Serbs of the town, Filip Gjurashkovitch. The Gjurashkovitch family had left Montenegro owing, as we have seen, to a fierce quarrel with the Petrovitches. Had fled, as usual, to Turkish territory and had, for years, held official positions, Filip had lived in Durazzo, and was strongly in favour of the establishment of an independent Albania, declaring that the trouble with the Albanians was due entirely to Turkish misrule. If given a chance of education they were among the most intelligent of the Peninsula. He emphasized this by pointing out that Suliman Pasha was an Albanian, and only a man of great skill could have kept the peace for twenty years between two rival garrisons both in the same town.

It was Whitsuntide, and several thousand pilgrims arrived at the Troitza Monastery, just outside the town, from Montenegro, Serbia, and even the Herzegovina, as well as from the surrounding villages. Especially a number of schoolmasters assembled, all of whom ran propaganda schools in the district; I thus learnt much of what was going on. The schoolmasters were nearly all Montenegrins and regarded the Sanjak as "their claim." They were furious with Austria, because they had ordered a quantity of the usual propaganda prints, grotesque portraits of Stefan Dushan, Milosh Obilitch, the nine Yugovitches, etc., for their schools in order to preach Great Serbia. Had had them sent by Austrian post so that they might not fall into the hands of the Turks—and the Austrians had stopped them. There was no Russian Consul there to see to it. Nor could Russia be relied on entirely. Two Russian officials had been recently to Miloshevo Monastery, near Prijepolje, and had declared the language spoken there to be Bulgar. And it was the place where St. Sava was buried! They were furious. Russian monks were now firmly established at Detchani. That was all right. None of them wanted reforms introduced into the Turkish Empire, because then there would be no hope of tearing it to pieces. As in Macedonia I found the approved method was to start a massacre and then cry to Europe for help. On all sides I heard again that the great Balkan rising had been stopped by the Russo-Japanese War. The Archimandrite of the Monastery was bitter about Russia. "What does Russia want with Manchuria? She has gone to take distant land that is no affair of hers and has left her brethren in the Balkans unhelped. God's curse is upon her." They were disgusted that Ferdinand of Bulgaria had been guest at the German wedding. He was an arch plotter, but a fool. "He wants to be Tsar of a wide land. But he will not succeed. He has weakened the Serb position by his propaganda, but he will never have Constantinople. Russia would trundle him out. She means to have Constantinople. No one else will." King Petar was Serbia's only hope, but the propaganda against him was active. England's attitude about the murder was incomprehensible to them. Had Alexander not been killed he would have allowed Austria to build and control a railway through Serbia. The Montenegrins jeered at Serbia, "a country that has a new ministry every few months." None of them seemed to think it counted. And none seemed to see the point of all working for a common cause. Whether they were pro- or anti-Petrovitch, they took it for granted Montenegro was to be the head of Great Serbia. For Austria they had nothing but contempt, and said pleasantly that all Austrian officers looked as if about to bear twins. You had only to run in a bayonet and the beer would run out. They had, however, no right to talk of drink, for the pilgrimage was an orgy of rakia, beer and wine.

From Plevlje I rode to Prijepolje, the furthest military outpost of Austria. There were but one hundred Christian houses in it. Nevertheless there was a schoolmaster industriously teaching "Great Serbia" and "patriotism." The Turkish Government was powerless to prevent this revolutionary work, as any interference would have brought protests from the Powers about "persecuting Christians."

The whole of the Sanjak from Mitrovitza to the Austrian frontier was inhabited almost entirely by Serb-speaking Slavs, the bulk of whom were Moslem. Large numbers were descendants of those evicted from Montenegro or Serbia in 1878, and were therefore not well disposed to either land. Krsto was not at all pleased to find that they had changed their habitat for the better and settled in land more fertile than that from which they had been driven. He naively told me he had hoped they had all starved.

Returning to Plevlje I found great excitement about me, as the Austrian authorities had hitherto believed that Plevlje could be reached only by Austrian post cart from the Austrian frontier, accompanied by an armed escort. An Austrian officer and the Consul hurried to interview me. They were polite and friendly, but cross-examined me severely as to the purpose of my visit, and were obviously displeased that an unarmed tourist could come straight across country and wander round without their leave or knowledge. The Consul was a Croat and vehemently anti-Serb. He told me that the Montenegrins had been guilty of starting the recent fighting near Bijelopolje, and that it had been led by a Montenegrin officer.

The Montenegrin version was that the Moslem Albanians drove some sheep on to a Christian grazing-ground; that the Christians drove them off again and so the fight began; that all the Christians there wore Montenegrin caps, and so the tale of the officer was untrue. The Moslems swore to the truth of the officer tale. Judging by the celerity with which the Montenegrin troops were despatched to the frontier I incline to think it was "a put up job."

News came in of the sinking of the Russian fleet by the Japanese. It produced a deep sensation. Formerly every Serb and Montenegrin had jeered at me because we took so long beating the Boers. Now when it appeared that heathens, believed to be black, were at the least inflicting heavy loss on Holy Russia, they felt as though the universe were falling. I noted in my diary: "Out here one feels very keenly the tituppy state of politics. Anything likely to upset the apple-cart should be avoided."

I returned without adventure to Nikshitch, and thence to Nyegushi by a very bad mountain track.

By now it was midsummer and blazing hot. I stayed at Krsto's hut, and slept in a sort of outhouse called the "magazin," built to hold contraband goods by an ancestor. By day the cloudless sky closed down on us like a lid and shut out every breath of air. The little cabbages wilted in yellow rows and the inhabitants of Nyegushi, like true Montenegrins, spent the day smoking and vainly watching for the sign of a cloud, instead of fetching water for their gardens.

At midday the limestone rocks glared and the shadows lay like ink blots. Only at night, when a soft wind stole up from the Bocche di Cattaro, did Nyegushi come to life. Then we gathered on a mound behind Krsto's hut and the neighbours flocked to hear the "monogram" as they persistently called my phonograph. So soon as its raucous voice arose, folk who had gone to bed emerged and joined the party just as they were. But this merely means that they were barefoot and revolverless, for no one undresses in the Near East.

My repertoire was limited, and I played "God Save the King" till I realized what must be the sufferings of the Royal Family. For Montenegro was all agog about King Edward.

When King Edward was last at Marienbad he had met and spoken with Prince Mirko and his wife Princess Natalie. Nor was it surprising, for the Princess was rarely beautiful, her figure as perfect as her face; and her lovely head was poised upon a flawless neck and shoulders. She would have shone in any court in Europe, and it was a hard fate which gave her to the second son of Montenegro. She, poor young thing, was one of the pawns in the game which the Petrovitch dynasty was playing for Great Serbia, and she dreamed of Queendom.

Edward VII admired her and the news flashed through Montenegro. It was in the Glas and the Korbiro (correspondence bureau), the ne plus ultra of fashionable intelligence. Excitement reached boiling-point when it was reported that King Edward in person had seen "our Mirko" and his wife off at the station and promised to call on them in Montenegro. Montenegro felt it had not lived in vain. So the villagers called for "God save the King" endlessly, and under the stars at night tried quite unsuccessfully to learn it, for Montenegrin music is not on our scale and flows weirdly in semitones and less than semitones, and in spite of strenuous efforts our national anthem always trailed off into a hopeless caterwaul. But we all agreed that King Edward would be very much surprised when he heard the song and the "monogram" among the rocks of Nyegushi.

He never heard it. For meanwhile strings were pulling and fortunes changing. I returned to England, leaving the Montenegrins hopeful that he would come some day, and extorting from me a promise to be there with the "monogram".

Briefly, the history of my 1905 holiday may be summed up thus. Russia was powerless, and the dismayed Balkan States could not move without her. Austria had a free hand, and seemed likely to take advantage of Russia's plight. (It should be remembered to her credit that she did not.) There was very marked discontent in Montenegro against the Prince, and it was quite obviously engineered from Serbia, and perhaps from Russia too. The struggle for supremacy between father-in-law and son-in-law, Nikola and Petar, had begun. But Montenegro still believed itself as indubitably the head of Great Serbia. Even the malcontents wanted only to lead Montenegro to Prizren and glory, and were possibly unaware they were being used as cat's paws. Hatred between Serbia and Bulgaria was growing in intensity, and a war-spirit was very evidently stimulated by the fresh arrival of Russian arms in Montenegro.

That the Prince himself was aware of the undercurrent of feeling against him was shown a little later by his sudden bid for popularity. To the surprise of all the land and of the foreign Ministers, including Russia, he granted the Ustav (Constitution) in November, on St. Luke's Day. Montenegro was to elect a Parliament in which each tribe would be represented. He would teach his people self-government before he left them. It was admirably intended. Montenegro, astonished and excited, at once surcharged all the postage stamps.

Prince Nikola had made a bold bid for popularity. But he did not know the web that was already winding around him. On returning to London I found the Serbian, Alexander Jovitchitch, who had been informally representing Serbia since the murder of Alexander, much excited. The British Government, for no visible reason, was coming to the conclusion that all should be forgotten and forgiven, and diplomatic relations resumed with Serbia. As it was inconvenient to have no communication at all, England had adopted a sort of "We really can't ask you to dinner but you may talk with the cook over the area railings" attitude towards Jovitchitch and allowed him to call at the Foreign Office. Now, having suffered long at the back door, he was much hurt to find that on resumption of relations he was to retire in favour of M. Militchevitch, the former Serb Minister, the same who in 1902 had had to clear me of the charge of being a Karageorgevitch. By way of cheering Jovitchitch I said things Serb were indeed looking up. Relations were to be resumed with Serbia, and King Edward had promised to visit Montenegro. Jovitchitch, to my surprise, fired up. He told me sharply that the King would never go to Montenegro. It could not be permitted. "But why?" I asked, astonished. "Because Serbia is the leading state. It would be an insult to the Serb race if King Edward went to Cetinje before Belgrade! It has been represented to him and he has dropped the project."

That King Edward, after all he and the British Government had said about the murders, should now be so sensitive of Serbia's feelings that, to please Petar Karageorgevitch, Edward VII should change his holiday plans, was a little astonishing.

The reason has since then come to light. We were bound to France by the Entente Cordiale, and France was bound to Russia. Petar Karageorgevitch was Russia's choice. Russia had quite decided that Bulgaria, by means of which she had first planned to work, would never voluntarily be her vassal state and act as land-bridge to Constantinople, and had therefore, in 1903, definitely preferred Serbia. But she could not support two heads for Great Serbia. One must go. England must not hob-nob with Montenegro. This was the first definite outside sign that there was to be a struggle between Serbia and Montenegro. France's military policy was tied fast to Russia's. And in December of that year—1905—we know now that "military conversations" were begun between France and England. They appear to have been far reaching. If France and England were to concoct military plans together it was clear England must recognize Russia's Balkan agent—Serbia. The situation was the more remarkable, for Edward VII had always been on the best terms with Franz Josef. And it was precisely because Alexander Obrenovitch wished to make alliance with Austria that he was slaughtered. Poor King Edward may have thought he was peace-making, but he little knew the Balkans.

In June 1906, England formally resumed relations with Serbia, an event of far higher import than any one but Russia realized at the time.

It is a date that ends a chapter of Balkan history. Till then Serbia was a petty Balkan state whose history had been punctuated by political murder, who had been aided from time to time by Russia, but quite as often by Austria, and who had usually been recognized as part of the Austrian "sphere." She now formed part of the combine against the Central Powers, and had the support of France, Russia and England.

Montenegro, on the other hand, "the Tsar's only friend," besung by Tennyson, bepraised by Gladstone (mainly, it is true, because neither of these well-meaning gentlemen had ever been there), now fell from her high position. Montenegro had had the praise of England's great men, and the political and financial support of Russia. But from the day when England and France began "military Conversations" the tables were turned. Prince Nikola might strive for popularity with "Constitutions," but, unless a miracle happened, the fate of the Petrovitches was sealed. They would never ascend the throne of Great Serbia.

And the fate of Europe was sealed too.