CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE YEARS OF THE WAR
THE first thing I did in London was to send back to King Petav the Order of St Sava he had bestowed upon me, with a letter telling him I had heard the attack upon Austria freely discussed the previous year, and that I considered him and his people guilty of the greatest crime in history.
I will add here only a few notes on some of the events of the next few years which concerned the lands we have been considering. First, I ascertained that in Cetinje the Archduke's murder was accepted unhesitatingly as Serb work. None even suggested that any one else had been responsible, and it was thought rather a good way of showing patriotism. Montenegro desiring, like many greater Powers, to obtain territory, declared war and occupied the strip of land between the bay of Trieste and Antivari, which the Austrians evacuated almost at once. Prince Petar led the Montenegrin force, and to the pain and surprise of the Great Serbian party they found that such was the reputation of the Montenegrin army that a very large part of the Serb population fled along with the Austrians without waiting to be "liberated." Even the Orthodox priest of Spizza fled, and the lot of those who remained was not too happy. Being liberated by Montenegrins is a painful process. Montenegrin troops also crossed the Bosnian frontier, but did not get far, and failed to carry out their boast that they were going to Serajevo.
When the great Russian retreat was taking place Montenegro began to waver. Without Russia it was believed that the war must collapse. Petar Plamenatz, though he had every belief in the British navy, had none in the army. Peace was expected to ensue shortly. Montenegro came to some arrangement with Austria, which enabled her to shift her troops and occupy Scutari in the summer of 1915. A detachment of the "Wounded Allies" society, which hastened to Montenegro, found "neither wounded nor allies," so some of its members reported.
The mountain Albanians strongly resisted the Montenegrin advance, but Scutari had been disarmed by the International Control, and was easily taken.
The Serbs also anticipated peace, and concentrated forces in such a position as also to be able to enter and occupy Albanian territory.
In April 1915, as we learnt later, the Powers who had guaranteed Albania's independence, bought Italy's intervention by promising her Albania's best port, Valona, and by the same secret Treaty bound her over not to object should "France, Russia, and Great Britain desire to distribute among Montenegro, Serbia, and Greece the northern and southern portions of Albania." The Powers who rushed to war over the violation of the Belgian Treaty, thus themselves tore up their Treaty with Albania. Secrets usually leak out. Serbia got wind of the Treaty in a garbled form two months later, and believed that the whole coast down to and including Durazzo was promised to Italy. Therefore, when it was yet possible to win Bulgaria's support by giving her her "Alsace-Lorraine", Macedonia, the Serbs refused. "If," said Prince Alexander to my informant, "I am to lose land in the west, I will yield none in the east."
Another evil result was, that as we had planned the destruction of North Albania, we could not call upon its help. In the autumn of 1915 I received a telegram from Sir Edward Grey suggesting that I and some others who knew the land should go to North Albania and recruit the tribesmen on our side. The frontier could thus have been held, and the Serbian debacle prevented in all probability. But to do this it was necessary to guarantee to the Albanians the independence of their land, and to this Russia and France, it would appear, refused consent. And the plan was dropped. The Serbs fled over the mountains, where the Albanians, who had suffered much at their hands two years previously, could have destroyed them, but trusting to the honour of England and the Allies they let them pass and even fed them.
In Montenegro the news of Serbia's defeat caused no undue grief. One man's misfortune is another's luck. Montenegro might now become top-dog.