Twenty Years of Balkan Tangle

by M. E. Durham

I started again, this time for Nikshitch and the Durmitor, with the intention of going into Turkish territory if possible.

At Rijeka I was taken to the small-arms factory on the river, the primitive machinery being worked by water power. Here were men busy fitting new stocks to old rifles, Russian ones. I was told that one was being prepared for every man in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. When all were ready they would be smuggled in. I was taken aback at this, but found when playing the phonograph in the evening to a large party, that the notion of a not distant war with Austria accompanied by a great Balkan rising was generally accepted. Still more was I surprised to hear talk against the Prince. He and his sons were accused of taking all the best land and doing nothing with it. And the question of the tobacco regie raged. Podgoritza I found greatly changed. The outer world had rushed in on it. The tobacco factory dominated the town. "God willing, we shall burn it down!" said the populace cheerfully. True, it employed many hands, but they complained the pay was low, though they admitted that the girls had never earned anything before. In truth, regular work was a new thing in Montenegro. The end of the days of indefinite coffee- and rakia-drinking and recounting of past battles was now approaching. The middle ages were leaping at one bound into the twentieth century, and the Montenegrin was angry and puzzled.

The Italians had undertaken to construct a railway, quays, and harbour works, and offered fair wages for workmen. The Montenegrins demanded fantastic payment and imagined that by standing out they would get it. To their astonishment the Italians imported gangs of far better workmen and finished the work. Then the Montenegrins cursed the Italians and hated them bitterly. Even Montenegrin officers openly boasted that they did not know the price of the regie tobacco as they smoked only contraband, and feeling ran so high that the Italian Monopol buildings at Antivari were attacked and damaged.

At Podgoritza I met again the Albanian coachman Shan, who had served me very faithfully on my previous visits. He took me to the house of his family. A striking contrast to the Montenegrin houses, it was spick and span and even pretty, for the Albanian has artistic instincts, whereas the Montenegrin has none. Left to himself, his taste is deplorable.

Further signs of change in the land soon showed themselves. Rijeka had already grumbled. At Danilovgiati I was at once approached by a youth, who proudly showed me a Serbian paper containing his portrait and verses by himself. He was lately come from Belgrade, where he was a student, one of the many who have there been made tools of by unscrupulous political intriguers. He indignantly inveighed against the poverty of Montenegro and ascribed every evil to the Prince. I suggested that the Montenegrins themselves were among the laziest on God's earth, and could with energy do very much more with their land. But he blamed "the Government" for everything. No learning, no progress, he declared, was possible. You could not even import the books you wanted. He hurled his accusations broadcast and then, for he took his literary qualifications very seriously, sat down and wrote a verse about me after considerable labour and much sprawling over the table.

Danilovgrad was the home of another reformer, Dr. Marusitch, a Montenegrin who had but recently returned from Manchuria after many years' service as a surgeon in the Russian Army. A wild, enthusiastic creature—good-natured, well-meaning and indiscreet. For Montenegro he was rich. He had just married an extremely beautiful young woman, and the hospitality of the two was unbounded. He at once asked me to stay six months as his guest and write, with his aid, the standard book on Montenegro. Like all who had lived in Russia, he was a hard drinker and tipped down alcohol in alarming quantities. He was a strange mixture of the old world and the new. Took me to see the grave of Bajo Radovitch, who fell in 1876 after having cut off fifteen Turkish heads; admired the bloody feat, but blamed Germany for keeping up militarism. He had no opinion at all of the Montenegrin Government, and poured out a torrent of plans for its reform. He was all for peace, he said, and wanted to rearrange all the world—which badly needed it. I little thought what would be his fate when I wished him goodbye, and promised to look him up next year.

On the road to Nikshitch we came up with the military wagons carrying weapons, mainly revolvers and sword bayonets up-country for distribution. Russia had sent a revolver for each man in the country, and great was the rejoicing. Russia, when she re-armed her forces, usually bestowed the old weapons lavishly on Montenegro. Artillery was soon to follow.

We left the road and struck up-country towards Durmitor, along with a string of pack-horses laden with the Russian weapons which went with an armed escort. By the way we passed two stones recording recent murders, showing that blood feuds were not yet extinct.

At Zhabljak, Durmitor, I spent two amusing days seeing the distribution of arms. Men flocked in from all parts, were delighted with their new toys, and Russia leapt up in every one's estimation. No ammunition was served out for, as an officer remarked, "It would all be wasted." They conversed on blood and battle and clicked their new revolvers. "How we should like to go over and try them on the Turks," they said. "But we dare not cross the border because of the Powers."

Two chetas (battalions) were armed and had left when a bugle sounded of a sudden. "That means third cheta assemble!" shouted Krsto. All rushed out. Sure enough a telegram had arrived saying "The Turks are over the border! Mobilize at once!"