The feature of the reforms which gave them most offence was the mixed gendarmerie. The British Consul at Uskub had suggested that it would be sheer slaughter to create Christian police among the Albanians. But the arrogant Russian, who at that time played first fiddle in the opéra comique, opposed this view, probably for no other reason than that it was English; and the Turks, who make game of mad methods, agreed to the Austro-Russian demands with alacrity, and sent six Servian gendarmes to Vutchitrin.
The public crier made his second call. Albanians to the number of several thousand foregathered and visited Vutchitrin. But arriving there they found the Turkish kaimakam had sent the sorry Serbs away to a secret place of safety.
This was not a dire disappointment for the Albanians; they projected bigger sport for the following day and kept the peace during the night. Early next morning they set forth for Metrovitza, a short march, to fulfil a promise, made a year before, to destroy the newly established Russian Consulate. But, over-confident and swaggering with pride, they boasted openly of what they would do, and when they came to the Consular town they found the roads blocked with infantry and covered by cannon. The Albanians halted, and the chiefs went forward to parley with the Turkish commander: they were faithful followers of the Padisha, doing only what he would desire. But the Turk could not be moved, and threatened to fire if the Albanians advanced.
The Albanians did not believe that the Sultan’s soldiers would fire on the faithful, and when the whole force had gathered they marched boldly upon the town by two roads at the same time. They were met by a volley from the troops, and, much cut up, retired. A body of them occupied an old mill across a little stream which bordered the barracks, and fired upon the garrison from there until shelled out. Then the whole number, after collecting their dead—with the tacit permission of the Turks—withdrew to their own towns. But the Russian Consul was not to escape.
The garrison of Metrovitza, which was largely Albanian, sympathised thoroughly with the Albanian effort that had failed, and, indeed, every Mohamedan did. The Government had got more than it bargained for. The garrison was sore and sullen, and when the soldiers gathered at the cafés in the evening, it was to deplore the day’s work and to speculate upon the Padisha’s will.
At one café a fanatic dervish, after working his hearers to frenzied pitch, exclaimed, ‘And is there not a single Mohamedan who will rid us of this giaour?’
‘I will,’ said a piping little voice.
‘You! Oh, no, you will not!’ said the dervish scornfully.
‘I will,’ repeated the other.
He was a soldier who had been in the fight, a slim, sickly fellow with a sad visage. I saw him on trial at Uskub.