The Balkan Trail

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

This business of cornering communities is expensive, and little Servia would hardly have been able to cast her claims so far except with monetary aid from one of the ‘interested Powers,’ and the support of that Power’s agents in the distressed land. When the Bulgarians began to show an independent spirit, and diplomatic connections with Russia—which assumed the form of a dictatorship on the part of the boasted liberator—came to be severed for a term of years, that ‘interested’ Power adopted Servia as its ward, and is still at work disciplining the other little country that dared to dispute its honesty of motive. Russia among the Balkan States does a work similar to that of the Sultan in Macedonia; she aids the weak to rival the strong, fosters their jealousies, and maintains a dominant influence on the distress she begets; and, unlike the Sultan, she does this in the guise of Christian sympathy.

In Uskub the Russian Consul, for ever attired in military greatcoat and Muscovite cap, and always accompanied by a brace of stalwart bodyguards bristling with weapons, snubs the retiring little Bulgarian agent, and on all occasions bestows his pretentious patronage upon the Servian representative. It was at Russian suggestion that the Servian schools adopted a distinctive uniform, after the manner of Russians in Finland and in other lands they have hoped to Russify.

The Austro-Russian accord on Macedonian affairs resembles a thieves’ alliance—without that saving grace, however, the proverbial honour that exists among thieves. For centuries these partners of the present have been loitering around the gates of the European estate of the Ottoman gentleman with the many wives and the torture-chamber. One of these interested neighbours has been in the habit of rushing in to the rescue whenever a Christian cry escaped the Bluebeard’s window—always attempting to get away with something; the other, not so daring, but quite as designing, waited without the walls and made his burly rival return the booty or compensate him (the other) under threat of the police. Three years ago this worthy pair allied agreed to rob the house no more, but planned to enter—and reform it!—and received a mandate so to do from the European Powers. But, in spite of the pretensions of these confederates, neither has forsaken his pet policy, which is directly opposed to that of the other. While the gallant Russian is engaged advocating the cause of the Serbs, his Austrian ally-in-reforms is diligently at work advancing the interests of a rival race.

The Roman Catholic church at Uskub, a feature of the Austrian propaganda, was decorated one dusty summer day with garlands of mountain flowers and many flags. A vast Mohamedan banner floated from one side of the Christian belfry and an equally large emblem of the Dual Monarchy from the other; and strings of little flags, alternately Turkish and Austro-Hungarian, streamed away from the tower to the high mud walls about the churchyard. Over the door, where only the Catholics who entered could see, hung a large print of Francis Joseph much bemedalled, and none was visible of Abdul Hamid.

It was the feast of Corpus Christi, and the Englishman and I, attracted by the Albanians converging upon the place from all directions, betook ourselves to witness the celebration. The darkened church was aglow with many candles around the crucified Christ, and the fourteen ‘stations of the Cross,’ set like little chapels about the churchyard, contained life-sized pictures of the Saviour’s labour to the Crucifixion. During the indoor service the Albanian women, veiled like their Mohamedan sisters, occupied one side of the church, and the men the other. In the pew of honour sat the Austrian reformajis in full feather, the brilliant uniform of Count de Salis, chief of the gendarmerie contingent, relieved and glorified by a Salonica frock-coat covering the venerable person of the Christian Vali, who sat next. This decrepit representative of the Sultan was playing a game similar to that of the gaily garbed gendarmes. He was selected by the Porte several years ago as a co-governor with the Turkish Vali because of general incapacity and indifference to affairs. His duties were ostensibly to reform the province, but he was incapable of performing them or he would not have received the appointment. This day he was displaying the Christian sympathy of his Sultanic master, just as the Austrians flaunted their religious zeal before the Catholic Albanians.

At the conclusion of the indoor service on Corpus Christi day, priests and people left the church chanting, each carrying a lighted candle, and made a tour of the ‘stations,’ kneeling and praying a few moments at each. Little flower-girls, dressed in gayest shalvas, preceded the procession scattering rose-leaves. Two proud Albanian boys swung the incense lamps, and four others bore a panoply of silk over the heads of the priests. First behind the priests came the Count and the Christian Vali, and then followed the Austrian Consul and other Austrian officers and the people. The ordeal of kneeling in the grass was trying to the trousers of the Count and painful to the rheumatic limbs of the venerable Christian Vali, whom the Count was required to assist to his feet on each occasion.

It was a windy day, and the candles, borne gingerly at arm’s length, sputtered, and spattered the gorgeous uniform and the ample frock-coat. The delegates at their divine duties, wore on their faces, I must say, most unholy expressions, and at the conclusion of the ceremony the poor old Christian with the fez presented the appearance of having eaten his supper without stuffing the end of a napkin in his collar. Religion and politics make an unhappy mixture; they war within one like custard and cucumbers.

The presence of two unsympathetic newspaper correspondents, standing by at this ceremony, appeared to annoy the official party, and for some time after that ‘the two English correspondents’ (of whom I was one) were severely snubbed by the Austrian officers. An imaginary but effective barrier was thrown across the middle of the dinner-table, dividing the Englishmen and the Russians from the Austrians and the Jews, mostly Vienna correspondents.

But there came a day when the latter, overwhelmed by curiosity, were forced to fraternise again.

A strange female of daring demeanour, unheralded and alone, appeared at the hotel. Her species had never been seen before in Uskub. Her skirt was shockingly short, and contained a hip-pocket, from which the blued butt of a Colt’s 44 protruded. Her hat was a duplicate of mine, and all her other garments were more like a man’s than a woman’s. Fast on her heels arrived the ubiquitous policeman with his compliments and his veiled demands for information. She possessed a teskeré, and gave it to him, but he was not content with this, and would have her passport with its big red seal.