Although a great many of his subjects charged Prince Milan with preferring his own and the dynasty's interests to those of the State, they should have taken into account that the Berlin Congress had left their country in a more than difficult economic and political situation. Not only were Serbia and Montenegro kept apart, but in the intervening territory, the Sandjak of Novi Bazar, permission was given to Austria-Hungary, of which she soon availed herself, to establish garrisons. Serbia was now almost encircled by the Austrians and there remained only two inconvenient routes for the exportation of her products to other countries: down the Danube, with the very high tariffs imposed by the Berlin Congress, or by the line to Salonica, which was in the hands of Austrian capitalists and ran through Turkish territory. Therefore Serbia's independence, political and economic, existed at Austria's pleasure; and this must be remembered in extenuation of the secret Treaty[61] (June 23, 1881) whereby the Serbs bound themselves for ten years to abstain from any propaganda or other activity against the Habsburgs and to make no political treaties with other Powers without the knowledge and consent of Vienna. Nor were any foreign troops or volunteers to be allowed into Serbian territory. In return for this the Emperor undertook to recognize Prince Milan as King whensoever he might be pleased to assume that dignity (as he did on March 6, 1882), to protect his dynasty from the Karageorgević and to favour his acquisition of as much as possible of the valley of the Vardar. The grateful Prince affirmed this Treaty (on October 24, 1881) by a still more emphatic declaration by which he appears to have constituted himself a vassal of the Emperor. This infuriated the young politicians whose radical ideas, mostly imbibed at Paris and Geneva, were not balanced by the moral and social discipline which is the fruit of an advanced civilization. As a result Serbia was given over to chaos.... When Prince Alexander of Battenberg aquiesced in his Bulgars annexing eastern Roumelia it was said that he was violating the Berlin Treaty, but it is now known[62] that, in spite of the 1879 Treaty, this union had been foreseen and approved by Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1881. Nevertheless Austria, which hoped to embroil and enfeeble the two Slav States, urged Milan to declare war against the Bulgars, and this he did the more willingly as he fancied that it would divert from him the enmity of so many of his subjects; but this war was such an unpopular enterprise that the King did not dare to mobilize fully, and with his available forces indifferently equipped and badly led, the upshot was that the Bulgars were victorious. While Austria had thus been the Serb's evil genius, Russia, by withdrawing all her officers from Bulgaria, again acted in a manner which seemed scarcely to allow her and others, in 1915, to denounce the Bulgars for their ingratitude. (The Russians, as a subsequent Russian Minister at Sofia relates,[63] so completely mishandled the situation in the early days of Bulgaria's freedom that they had only themselves to blame for the invitation to Ferdinand of Coburg which was made with the express purpose of thwarting Russian aggression.)

THE BURDEN OF THE OBRENOVIĆ

The fratricidal Serbo-Bulgarian conflict of 1885 has been well commemorated by a monument at Vidin: a soldier of the victorious Bulgarian army is depicted, prostrate in sorrow.... Milan, after an effort to rule with a new liberal constitution, abdicated and delivered his country to a Regency. These statesmen, who were aware of the secret convention with Austria, obstructed the development of the country and had recourse to a coup d'état in order to prevent a Radical election. Alexander, the ill-fated son of Milan, by another coup d'état proclaimed himself of age, summoned a Radical Cabinet and restored to the people their political liberties. But the enthusiasm caused by these proceedings was not often to be roused again by Alexander. The midnight coups d'état, which rapidly succeeded one another, were a form of government congenial to this gloomy, silent, friendless youth who blinked at the world through his spectacles and was incapable of seeing anything except the narrowness and the intrigues that were a part of his surroundings. More and more he showed himself a despot; he persecuted and imprisoned hundreds of Radicals, who were the overwhelming majority of the population. Espionage was rampant, the finances were in a state of chaos and Serbia's prestige was at such an ebb that, what with the disasters of 1885 and the reign of Alexander, the Macedonian Slavs were naturally more inclined to proclaim themselves Bulgars. Alexander annulled the constitution, imposed that of 1888, annulled this one also, superseded all the judges of appeal as well as all the councillors of state, married his mistress (an engineer's widow) and plotted, it was said, to nominate as heir to the throne his brother-in-law, a worthless young lieutenant. Meanwhile this officer and his brother were exasperating the people of Belgrade by commanding the orchestras in cafés to play the national anthem at their entrance, and occasionally, while they drank, firing their revolvers into the air. It was something more than personal exasperation which brought about Alexander's death. Those who participated in the murder were both partisans and opponents of the dynasty. Likewise the Austro-Hungarian Government was aware of the plan: Count Goluchowski promised the conspirators that Austria would not resort to armed interference, although two army corps were held in readiness to march into Serbia. Of course it would have suited Austria much better if the king, who seemed to be emancipating himself from the veiled tutelage accepted by his father, had been dethroned and kept by the Ballplatz as a restraint on the political waywardness of any successor. Some of those who entered the palace on the night of June 10, 1903, may have had their intentions changed by the panic which was caused owing to the lateness of the hour and the groping along unlighted passages—the electricity was out of order—but amid the band of executioners there may very well have been some who recognized that, for Serbia's future peace and welfare, it was infinitely preferable that he should not live. From practically the whole nation there came, when they heard of his death, a sigh of relief; he was killed by the detestation of his subjects. Yet there might have been, in the people's state of nerves, an outbreak against the actual murderers and this might have inaugurated a reign of terror if Pašić had not walked up and down in front of the palace, wearing a bowler hat and buttonholing everyone he saw. "Most unfortunate, most unfortunate," he said; "they were both drunk, and so they killed each other." Meanwhile, machine guns were being mounted at appropriate spots, but they were not required. And Austria published to the world a few abominable incidents that accompanied the deed and followed it; these were almost wholly untrue, yet they served to make not only Western Europe but even the Sultan hold up their hands in horror. Abdul Hamid raised those hands that were dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Armenians, and in exalted phrases, says Mr. Laffan,[64] lectured the Serbs on the undesirability of assassination.

A younger man than King Peter Karageorgević, who now succeeded, might have been appalled by the difficulties of the situation. Murder and the rearing of pigs were universally regarded as the purposes for which God had created the Serbs, and years were to elapse before the little country could persuade the world that it was not inhabited by beings who approached the lower animals—and then the world perceived that it was, to a great extent, inhabited by heroes. When King Peter ascended the throne the Royal Families of Europe congratulated each other that they were not related to him, and they sympathized with Nikita of Montenegro for having this personage as a son-in-law. The indebtedness of Serbia—she owed 450,000,000 francs, a sum which swallowed a quarter of the annual budget—the corruption of the public services, the lack of industrial development, the rudimentary state of agriculture and whatsoever else of evil which the Obrenović had done or left undone—everything was the fault of King Peter. A great many people were positive that Alexander had been slain by his myrmidons; for this foul deed he had been always plotting, from the time when he fought as a lieutenant in the French army of 1870-1871 (when he was wounded and decorated), during the Bosnian insurrection of 1876 (when he served the national cause) and while he was translating Mill's Treatise on Liberty. These liberal activities were held as the absolute proofs of the hypocrisy of Europe's outlaw. In a few years "old Uncle Pete," as his people affectionately came to call him, was revered by the men not only of friendly countries but even by those who were in arms against him.

A HAPPY ADVENT

He started by placing the government in the hands of the Radical party and by showing that his own position would be strictly that of a constitutional monarch. Numerous reforms were undertaken with respect to the finances, the exploitation of the country's resources and the reorganizing of the army, which had been debilitated by intrigue and corruption. So many tasks had simultaneously to be accomplished that the greatest Serbophil may have despaired, since the national qualities do not, as yet, include much power of organization. Is it not astonishing, therefore, that in a few years so much was done?—the army, for example, becoming so closely identified with the people that high Obrenović officers felt that it was unpatriotic to perpetuate these dynastic divisions, and gradually they resolved to offer their swords to the State. More than one General whose abilities in the Great War gained him a high British decoration had once been conspicuous for his enmity to the Karageorgević. With regard to Serbia's international standing we have the fact that in 1899-1900 it was impossible to arrange a loan of 40 millions at Vienna even though the entire railway system was offered as a guarantee; in a few years various loans, with relatively easy terms, were contracted for amounts of 90, 110 and 150 millions. One saw the peasant, who a short time before had sold his harvest while it was still green (zeleno) to the local usurer (hence called the "Zelenac"), now demanding every day by telegram via Belgrade or Smederevo the market prices at Antwerp. In 1895 Serbia had sunk to such depths that a Dalmatian leader said openly to a German journalist that the Yugoslav idea could only be realized by Bulgaria; in 1910 the "Narodna Odbrana" (or Organization for National Defence), that was not, as the Austrians alleged, a nursery for murderers but a patriotic body—it no doubt reminded the people of their brothers in Macedonia, the Voivodina and Bosnia, but at the same time urged them to cultivate the land more rationally, to visit the doctor rather than some old woman, to dress, sleep and eat in accordance with hygiene, and to take steps against illiteracy—in 1910 the efforts of the "Narodna Odbrana" had had such success that an inquiry, in which the French participated, found that out of a hundred recruits from a backward region 61 per cent. could read and write, 99 per cent. had some knowledge of the battle of Kossovo and the reign of Dušan, while 82 per cent. could enumerate the provinces inhabited by their unredeemed brothers. The rise of Serbia was due to the happy direction that was now given to the virile spirit of the people; standing back to back in their own land, they were soon able to arouse the despondent hearts of their countrymen who languished under various tyrannies outside the national frontiers.

Those who in Old Serbia acknowledged their Serbian nationality were the constant victims of Albanian intolerance. One massacre followed another—that people which, according to some of its present champions, is mild and noble and misunderstood, with a particular aptitude for silver-work and embroidery—Miss Edith Durham asks that this poor nation should not be robbed of its country, its one ewe-lamb, which they love intensely and which, to everyone's admiration, they defend with great heroism; one cannot expect her, the Secretary of the Anglo-Albanian Committee, to refer to the numerous lambs, etc., which the Albanians, armed with machine guns, carried off in 1919 from a Serbian monastery near Tetovo; and in 1903 the Albanians, waiving their mildness, appear to have been more conspicuous in attacking others than in defending themselves. The monks of the old Serbian patriarchate of Peć were obliged to have Moslem and Albanian attendants, and it does not strike one as heroic when the monks themselves were murdered, so that the great monastery of Dečani had perforce to be served by Russian monks from Mt. Athos. Far distant, indeed, was the day when those Albanians, who called themselves, after a river, the Fani, went to the assistance of Dušan. They had been brought to a temporary standstill by the swollen waters of the Drin—"but," exclaimed one of their chieftains, "for a hero every day is good." They crossed the river and Dušan gave them the name of Mirditi, by which they are still known, "mir dit" signifying in their language "good day." Not only were the Serbs compelled to don Albanian raiment—the Orthodox priest who ministers to Djakovica had, in 1903, to put aside his Serbian head-dress on leaving his quarter of the town; when making an official visit his head-dress was Greek and always in the surrounding country it was Albanian. Mr. Brailsford found, in June 1903, that the Serb peasants were tenants at will, exposed to every caprice of their Albanian conquerors; both at Peć, he says, and at Djakovica there was no law and no court of justice. In 1903 at Mürzsteg, near Vienna, Francis Joseph and the Tzar concluded their Macedonian reform scheme, this rather futile arrangement paying, as one might suppose, not much deference to the Serbs. In Bosnia also and in southern Hungary the Serbs were in a humiliating position.

But the Serbs in the little kingdom strove manfully to put their own house in order and to encourage their brethren. What is known as the "Pig War" was waged, with astonishing success, against the Austrian Empire; by sending her live-stock and meat overland to Salonica, her cereals down the Danube, Serbia managed to break down the barriers behind which the Austrians had intended to control her economic life. The measures adopted by Stojanović, the Minister of Commerce, were confirmed by the Skupština and enthusiastically supported by the whole people, regardless of the accompanying privations or of any bribes held out by the Austrians. Thus when the Austrians reduced the fares on their well-equipped Save and Danube vessels, these were still boycotted in favour of the Serbian boats. One morning at Šabac a civil servant had embarked on the Austrian ship, while everybody else was crowding on to the much smaller, slower and less cleanly Serbian rival. The civil servant was being vigorously hissed, when he shouted across to his compatriots that as he was an official he had a free pass and he thought it a good plan to make the Austrians consume, simply for him, a certain amount of coal.... The young men of the intelligentsia were not idle. Žerjav for the Slovenes, Krisman for the Croats, Yovanović and Nešić for the Serbs, were eagerly at work to bring about the union of the Southern Slavs. They had some sympathizers in Bulgaria, but that country was too much oppressed by Ferdinand and the Germanic influence. Both Žerjav and Krisman were destined to become Ministers in the South Slav Parliament, which of course does not yet include Bulgaria. Nešić, who was the diplomat of the Serbian movement, became Consul at Priština, took part in the Balkan War, for instance at the siege of Scutari, as an artillery officer, and after some years found himself inside the town as Yugoslav Envoy. He is now Minister at Tirana, a delicate post which could not be in better hands. Ljuba Yovanović was the idealist whose work was to arouse his fellow-countrymen by articles and poems. In the war against Bulgaria he was wounded and in hospital contracted cholera. On the day of his death he wrote to a brother of Nešić, now one of Belgrade's leading lawyers; he was utterly grieved, he said, that brother-Slavs should have shed each other's blood, but he was certain that the day of union would come.

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN WRATH

The first external result of Serbia's efforts was seen in 1905, when forty young intellectuals of Croatia, Dalmatia and Istria met at Rieka and, while accepting the union of Croatia with Hungary, called on the Serbian political parties to join them. Twenty-six Serbian deputies met at Zadar, endorsed this policy and formed with the Croats the Serbo-Croat Coalition, to which the Slovenes also subscribed. Francis Kossuth, the Magyar Opposition leader, welcomed with eloquent phrases the idea of an alliance between his party and the new Coalition; but when he came into power he forsook this attitude and exhibited the ordinary Magyar ruthlessness—he himself introducing a bill to make the Magyar language obligatory on Croatia's railways, and if a prospective Croat passenger did not know what name the Magyars had given to his old home and could not ask for a ticket in the Magyar language, he was told to stop where he was until he had acquired the necessary knowledge. In general, the Magyars had no reason to be dissatisfied with the sort of knowledge that the world had of them. In 1907, when a funeral pall was spread over the liberties of the Croats, Serbs, Slovaks and Roumanians in Hungary, Mr. Roosevelt, who was making his famous tour, gave many bouquets to "immortal Hungary," the "virtuous," the "chivalrous." The Serbo-Croats tried, by every possible method, to hold out against Buda-Pest. A Ban—Baron Rauch—was appointed with the special purpose of breaking the Coalition; and when the Serbo-Croats obtained fifty-seven seats out of eighty-eight, although one-half of the electorate consisted of employees dependent on the Government, an order was issued proroguing the new Diet.