From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

My eyes can wander as they please, quite unconstrained.

One is not confined by barriers.

Throughout the region which we are now traversing legend still lingers, but it is history that has now most to tell. And how much could it not relate regarding the struggle between the barbarians and the Romans in these parts—of the long contests between Christians and Ottomans. It was at Mohacs that the Turks, under Solyman the Magnificent, achieved, in 1526, the decisive victory which enabled them to hold Hungary in a state of vassalage for a hundred and fifty years. It was at the same place that the Ottoman forces, after being defeated by Sobieski in Vienna, made their final stand before they were forced to relinquish the land which they had so long held in subjection.

Further down the river is Illock, which was for a time the home, as it is the burial place, of St. John Capistran. It was this celebrated Franciscan friar who led an army of Crusaders, which he had collected by his preaching, to the assistance of Hunyady Janos when this renowned warrior compelled the Turks under Mohammed II to raise the siege of Belgrade.

Still further down stream is the little town of Petervarad with its strong fortress, long known as the Gibraltar of the Danube. It is so named because Peter the Hermit here marshaled in 1096 the hosts which he had assembled from far and wide for the First Crusade.

As the tones of the vesper bell of a village chapel are wafted over the peaceful waters, the famed “White City” of Serbia appears in the distance. Situated at the confluence of the Danube and the Save, Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has for more than two thousand years been a strategic point of prime importance. Occupied by Celts, generations before the Christian era, it became, under the name Singidunum, a stronghold of the Romans, who held it for four centuries. It subsequently belonged to the Byzantine Empire and, later on, was occupied at various times by Avars, Huns, Gepids, Goths, Sarmatians, Turks, Hungarians, Austrians, until in the beginning of the nineteenth century the Serbians made it their capital. The Turks, however, did not relinquish possession of its citadel until 1867.

Few places have passed through more sieges or experienced more frequently the horrors of war than Belgrade. Aside from its historical associations, I found little of interest in the city. The inhabitants had none of the gayety and animation of the people of Vienna and Budapest. Their cheerless faces were like those of a race that has witnessed many tragedies and is living in constant fear of impending disaster.

And what country, indeed, has passed through more and greater disasters than Serbia? For it is not too much to say that during the past twenty-five centuries of its history it has been almost continually in a condition of social unrest and political chaos. Times without number the tides of invasion and devastation have swept over this unfortunate land. The general poverty and intellectual stagnation of the people were aggravated by the follies of their rulers and by dynastic scandals that shocked the civilized world. For generations at a time the administration of the country was little better than organized brigandage. Unscrupulous officials, living in Oriental indolence, prospered on the life-blood of the down-trodden peasantry, for whom justice was but a myth. Blood feuds, political murders and internecine strife were long endemic, and guaranties for life and property were, consequently, impossible.

And this was true not only for Serbia but also for the whole of the Balkan peninsula—for Bulgaria, for Macedonia, for Roumania and for the half-barbarous principalities along the Adriatic. So completely separated were they from the rest of the world that little was known of them in western Europe until less than a century ago, when they began to give stronger evidence of national consciousness than they had previously exhibited, and to manifest a united purpose to liberate themselves from the Ottoman yoke, under which they had suffered for so many centuries.

But it would be contrary to the teaching of history to assert that all the disorders endured and all the cruelties suffered by the inhabitants of the Balkans during the long period when they were deprived of their independence were due to the Turks. Nothing is farther from the truth. The fact is that the various Balkan races—the Greeks and Bulgars for instance—hated one another far more than they—either individually or collectively—hated the Turks.