"Well, it is very strange," they told us, "but we have none."
"What religion did you formerly have?"
"Well, we don't know."
Their priest roams the mountains with his gun, and there has been a tendency, since a man in this position received his salary from the State, for many to persuade the mufti to appoint them, irrespective of whether they could read or write. The devout Moslem is, to the exclusion of everything else, a Moslem; but in these districts, where the faith was assumed in a moment of pique or as a protection, and where the Muhammedan clergy has been so negligent, the people are gladly cultivating their Christian relatives. In the district of Suva Rieka one hears of conversions to Christianity, and the functionaries bring no pressure to bear, unlike the misguided Montenegrin officials who in 1912 rode into Peć, the old Patriarchate, and wanted in their delight to have everyone immediately to adopt the Orthodox faith. Now the authorities, with greater wisdom, do not interfere in these matters. They know that Yugoslavia will have no enemy in that house in the village of Brod, between Tetovo and Prizren, where two brothers are living together, of whom one went over to Islam. They know that the Muhammedan Krasnichi of Albania are proclaiming their kinship with the great Montenegrin clan of Vasojević, that the Gashi are calling to the Piperi and the Berishi to the Kuči. The new cordiality will be impaired neither by the differences of religion nor by the similarity of costume. The average Albanian of Djakovica would not be any fonder of an Orthodox fellow-citizen if the latter continues to wear the Albanian dress which was generally adopted about a hundred years ago, and the Vasojević may please themselves as to the wearing of a costume which they once found so useful in the Middle Ages. They happened to be for ten days in the Hoti country for the purpose of wiping out a blood affair, and when they were about to fall into the Hoti's hands they shouted, "What do you want with us? We are Kastrati!" The Kastrati, to whom these Albanian-clad people were led, confirmed the statement, so that the Vasojević earned for themselves the nickname of Kastratović.
From the Golo Brdo the best frontier would pass north-eastwards to the Black Drin and along that river until it is joined by the White Drin. This is a poor country whose inhabitants are, for the most part, Moslemized Serbs. About a hundred men are now engaged in excavating the very finely decorated Serbian church at Piškopalja on the Drin—much to the edification of the local Moslems. This church of their ancestors was covered in during the Middle Ages in order to conceal it from the Turks. Too often the natives' present occupation is brigandage; but from of old they have had economic relations with Prizren, to which old town of vine-arched, narrow, winding streets and picturesque bazaars these countryfolk have been accustomed to come every week. These Moslems (of whom there are some 100,000 in the department of Prizren, with 13,000 Orthodox and 3000 Catholics) used to detest the Christians on account of their religion, although half of the Moslems could speak nothing but Serbian. The Serbs, it must be admitted, were not always blameless; in the early nineties, for example, they suspended a pig's head outside the mosque. And the amenities of Prizren were complicated by the hostility between Orthodox and Catholic. This was largely due to the fact that, by the intervention of the French Consul after the Crimean War, the Catholics—descendants of Ragusan emigrants of the Middle Ages—had secured the former Orthodox church of St. Demetrius, in which church, by the way, the services had come to be held in Albanian. When the Vatican, in the second half of the nineteenth century, sent a Serbian priest, the congregation had become so thoroughly Albanized that after a year he had to leave. The propaganda of Austria, Italy and Russia did nothing towards persuading the three religions of Prizren to regard each other in a more amicable fashion; while Italy and Austria gave exclusive assistance to the Catholics, whom they found in such distress that, forty years ago, most of them went barefoot, the presence of the Russian Consul was of such importance to the Orthodox that their position at Prizren was better than in their old patriarchal town of Peć. Nowadays, with Austrian and Russian propaganda deleted, there is only that of the Italians, whose proposal to create an independent Albania (under Italian protection) was at first applauded by some simple folk in 1919. The Moslem took to accepting Italian money and then honourably informing the Yugoslav authorities that they had been appointed as agents of Italy; they offered to capture the Franciscan priests with whose help the Italians were trying to secure the Catholics; and as for the cash, it seems mostly to have been spent in a convivial fashion by the Moslems and the Serbs together. This friendship appears likely to continue, for the Serbian authorities, so far from countenancing such pranks as that of the pig's head, do not even propose to reconsecrate their ancient church of Petka. When this building was made into a mosque, the Moslem still permitted the Christian women to come and pray there, while if a Christian man was sick they let him leave a jar of water in the mosque all night, so that it might acquire certain medicinal properties. It is the intention of the Serbs not to restore the church to Christian worship, but to turn it into a museum.
With the frontier then being drawn along the Drin, towards the Adriatic, the famous villages of Plav and Gusinje would definitely pass to Yugoslavia, in accordance with the wishes of a deputation sent by them to Belgrade in 1919. The well-meaning British champions of Gusinje, who maintain that this village is furiously antagonistic to the Slav and is ready to struggle to the uttermost rather than be incorporated in a Slav kingdom, these champions do not, I think, draw a sufficient distinction between Montenegro and Yugoslavia. Plav, with its mostly Christian population, and Gusinje, where the Moslem preponderates, refused at the time of the Berlin Congress to be given to Montenegro, with which they had certain local quarrels. Nicholas reported to the Powers which had awarded him these places that they were obdurate, for which reason he was given in their stead a much-desired strip of coast, down to Dulcigno, and nothing could have suited that astute monarch better. Nikita—to call him by his familiar name—imagined that the two villages would eventually fall to Montenegro, because of the formidable mountains which divide them from the rest of Albania; the road from Gusinje to Scutari is very long and very arduous. When Montenegro succeeded in capturing Plav in 1912, a certain Muhammedan priest of that place joined the Orthodox Church and was appointed a major in the Montenegrin army. He acted as the president of a court-martial, and in that capacity is reputed to have hanged or shot, some say, as many as five hundred of his former parishioners, because they declined to be baptized. He told them that their ancestors were all Serbs, and that therefore they should follow his example. Since the Montenegrins did not restrain this over-zealous man, the villagers were naturally not in favour of that country. Montenegro had a very small number of good officials, owing to Nikita's peculiar management which, in considering his favourites, did not regard illiteracy as a bar to the highest administrative or judicial post.... The people of Plav and Gusinje have, on the other hand, no hostility against Serbia. In November 1918 a detachment of thirty Serbs was stationed at Gusinje, what time certain Italian agents put it into the shallow minds of some Albanians that Albania desired to be independent under Italian protection. Nothing happened when a Serbian force came from Mitrovica, except that these agents and a few of their tools—be it noted that perhaps half the population is ignorant of the Albanian language—withdrew to the Rugovo district, where they tried to induce the people to fly with them, so that the world would hear how iniquitously the Serbs had acted. Those of Rugovo refused to accompany them; in consequence of which there was a fight, some houses were burned, some women and cattle were seized. And afterwards the men of Rugovo repaired to Gusinje and exacted a vengeance which, the most Serbophobe person will admit, had nothing to do with the Serbs. The luckless village of Gusinje was again laid waste in 1919 by the Montenegrins, but this came to pass as the result of the Montenegrin clan of Vasojević having their property ravaged by some Albanian marauders who were prompted by the same Great Power. The Vasojević believed that this evil deed was done by the men of Gusinje, so that they destroyed their houses. When the facts were explained to them, the Vasojević said that they were prepared to rebuild the village. And now Plav and Gusinje, who ask for Serbian and not Montenegrin officials, recognize that it is impossible for them to live except in union with Yugoslavia.... Miss Durham's wrath concerning an affair which happened during 1919 in this region shows to what lengths a partisan will go. She complained with great bitterness that the Serbs had actually arrested a British officer whose purpose it was to make investigations.
The Serbs are human beings and are not immune from error; and Miss Durham is so determined to expose them that if all her charges were dealt with from Belgrade it would necessitate the appointment of one or two more officials. But in this particular case she is not the sole accuser. A Captain Willett Cunnington—who, according to the President of the Anglo-Albanian Society, the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., has several years' intimate experience of Albania—said in the New Statesman that in consequence of what occurred to Captain Brodie the Serbian Government was compelled to apologize abjectly. Now I happen to be very well acquainted with the stalwart Pouniša Račić, the Montenegrin who arrested Brodie. Albanians have told me that Pouniša's knowledge of the north and north-west of their country is not a matter of villages but of houses. And he has always observed the customs which prevail in those houses, so that when he is known to be approaching, the people who live at a distance of many hours will come to meet him, whether for the pure delight of discharging their firearms to his greater glory or for the purpose of seeking his advice. It is not because he has studied jurisprudence in Paris that they respect him in that bitter region, but because he does not disregard the laws that govern the wild hearts on both sides of the frontier. Yet I suppose Captain Brodie had never heard of him—poor Captain Brodie! unconscious of the great good luck which had brought him into the presence of this man who could have made his journey much more pleasant for himself and vastly more profitable for his superiors.
This is what Pouniša Račić told me:
"At the end of January and the beginning of February 1919, we were having a certain amount of trouble in the Gusinje and Plav district, where I was acting as delegate of the Belgrade Government. Travellers were being murdered, telephone wires were being cut, and so forth. In those parts, which I have known for so many years, it is a good deal easier to ascertain a criminal's name than to seize him, and I had not captured these malefactors when one day I had a message to say that a European Commission was approaching. Later on I was told that thirty-nine of its members were Albanians. I ordered my lieutenant to find out whether they were from our territory, in which case they were to be disarmed and brought to me; or from Albania, in which event they were to be received politely. A quarter of an hour after this I was told that they were all well-known brigands from our State, and there was one specially notorious person, Djer Doucha, who in 1912 was converted to Christianity and was made a gendarme at the court of King Nicholas; in 1915, after the Austrian invasion, he was reconverted to Islam and became a sergeant of gendarmerie. In that position he killed fifty or sixty Serbs and Montenegrins, to say nothing of his other acts of violence. In 1918, for instance, he murdered seven school-children whom he met on the road.
"I had some urgent business at Plav," continued Račić, "and there all these people were brought before me. In addition to the thirty-nine Albanians there were three men in British uniforms. I was acquainted with one of them, a certain Perola, a Catholic of Peć, a former Austrian agent who had committed many crimes against the Serbs and had lately escaped from the prison at Peć. One of the other two said that he was Captain Brodie, whom the London Government had sent as their delegate for Albania and Montenegro. I suppose the third man was his British orderly; I never heard him speak. But Brodie said many things. One of them (which was quite true) was that his Government had not yet recognized the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He demanded the instant release of his companions. 'Do you know who they are?' said I. 'That is no concern of yours,' said he. 'Well,' said I, 'they are criminals, and it is for the judges to say whether or not they are to be liberated.' 'I protest,' he exclaimed, 'in the name of England, against their arrest!' 'And I thank you,' said I, 'in the name of the Serbian police, for having brought them here.' 'You are a savage, a barbarous nation!' said he, 'and you don't deserve to be free and independent.' 'Sir,' said I, 'if you are an Englishman you should know that we are your allies, that you and we have shed our blood for the common cause. We love England very much, and I am very surprised to hear a British officer speak in this way.' Again he demanded to be set free, he and all his people, so that he could continue his mission; but I told him that after what I had heard from him and what I had seen of his escort, I could not permit him to go on to other villages unless he could show me an authorization from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Belgrade. 'I do not recognize the Belgrade Government,' said he. 'Whom, then,' I asked, 'do you regard as the legitimate ruler of this country?' 'King Nicholas,' said he, 'and the Government of Montenegro.' So I advised him to get a visa from King Nicholas and to come back to perform his mission, when that visa would be honoured. 'Anyhow,' said he, 'the people of these parts are against Serbia.' Thereupon I sent for the chief men and told them to say quite candidly in front of this Englishman what they wanted. There were five Moslems, including Islam and Abdi Beg Rejepagić (the leading family) and Ismael Omeragić, also two Christians, of whom I remember Staniča Turković. 'Long live Serbia!' they shouted. 'Death to Nicholas and the Albanians!' On hearing this Captain Brodie was discontented; he told me that I was a savage and did not know how to esteem an Englishman. 'I esteem you very much,' said I, 'and because he is wearing a British uniform I won't arrest this interpreter of yours.' (By the way, Perola was not acting as interpreter in our conversation, as the captain and I were talking French.) 'He used to be an Austrian agent,' said I. 'You are a liar!' cried Brodie; 'I know this man; he was nothing of the sort.' I remained calm, but I told him that he must not speak to me again in such a way. I asked him how long he had known Perola, who had got away from our prison a month ago. 'I have known him for a month,' said Brodie. 'And now,' said I, 'will you please show me your documents?' 'I have none,' said he, 'and I do not require any, as I am a British officer.' 'But I have read in the papers,' said I, 'that your people arrested and shot several persons who were wearing the uniform of a British officer. If you have no documents to prove that you are not a spy and that you are a British officer I shall have to arrest you.' Then he showed me one with some Italian words on it, I think a permission to go somewhere on the Piave front. 'From now,' said I, 'you are arrested; no one can come to you and you cannot leave this house. Prepare yourself to start to-morrow or the day after, if you are tired, for Peć, and perhaps Skoplje, so that you may prove your identity.' He protested, and declared that he must see the people in the neighbouring villages. 'If you are a real Englishman,' said I, 'I could not allow you to go by yourself, since there are many Moslems in these parts who have been excited against England by their hodjas, owing to your war with Turkey. They might kill you, and I would be held responsible; so that even if you had the necessary documents I could only let you go if precautions were taken to guard you. I am sorry,' said I, 'that you should have spoken as you have done against the Serbs; in fact, it seems to me that you are doing a disservice to England, and that here in this village I am serving her more truly.' 'I decline to go to Peć,' said Brodie; 'I want to go to Scutari.' 'You must go to Peć,' said I. He said that I could telephone concerning him either to the Belgrade Government or to the General at Cetinje. 'Unfortunately,' said I, 'it is these people who are with you who cut the telephone wires two days ago.' After this I appointed a guard for him. I gave him my room, with soldiers to serve him, to keep the room warm and bring him whatever food we had. [Observe that the above-mentioned Captain Willett Cunnington wrote in the New Statesman that Brodie was treated with "gross indignity.">[ 'Three horses were got ready,' said Račić in conclusion, 'and on these they rode to Peć, accompanied by a guard, both to prevent them from escaping and from coming to harm.'"[87]