In Montenegro I learnt there was disgust at having been dragged into the second Balkan war Montenegro could not refuse to take part as, then, if the Serbs won, she would lose all her war-spoils. I noted in my diary: "The Powers are making a damned mess of everything by their shilly-shally. . . . What rot it is for five Powers to be spending the Lord knows what on these warships, admirals, soldiers, etc. hanging about Scutari while the people up-country are dying of hunger." The suffering in the burnt villages was terrible. People were cooking grass for their starving children, and the death-rate from diarrhoea was high. Anything the Belgians suffered in 1914 was child's play in comparison. Meanwhile Roumania entered into the second Balkan war and stabbed Bulgaria in the back. History records few dirtier actions, nor need we waste pity on Roumania for the punishment which has since fallen upon her.
That the destruction of Bulgaria was early planned by Greek and Serb seems likely, for, as early as April, the Serb Minister at Bucarest proposed a Serbo-Roumanian alliance against Bulgaria, and the Serbian General staff began fortifying Ovtchepolje. Bulgaria fell, and the Treaty of Bucarest was signed on August 10, 1913. Albania was deadly anxious. The victorious Serbs and Greeks were drunk with blood, and thirsted for hers, too. And still the Powers made no move to send a Prince.
At the end of August I went up to the Shala mountains, where refugees from the Gusinje district seized by Montenegro, came in misery; survivors of the massacres which, in the name of Christianity, were going on. I examined witnesses. Four battalions of Montenegrins were carrying on a reign of terror. Moslems were given choice of baptism or death. Praying in Moslem form was forbidden. Men were slaughtered, and their wives unveiled and baptised, and in some cases violated as well. I was prayed to ask the King of England, who has many Moslem subjects, to save these hapless Moslems from extinction.
To Scutari came similar news of the hideous cruelty, by means of which Great Serbia was being created. An Ipek man, well educated and of high standing, told of what happened there: "Every day the telal cried in the streets 'To-day the Government will shoot ten (or more) men!' No one knew which men they would be, or why they were shot. They were stood in a trench, which was to be their grave. Twelve soldiers fired, and as the victims fell the earth was shovelled over them, whether living or dead. Baptisms were forced by torture. Men were plunged into the ice-cold river, and then half roasted till they cried for mercy. And conversion to Christianity was the price." Many, terrorized into baptism, came to me. One man with tears in his eyes assured me he had consented only to save his wife and children, but that he felt now that he was defiled and wished he were dead.
The International forces did nothing. They had no jurisdiction outside Scutari.
Unfortunately, also, the British staff knew no language but English, and the most reliable dragomans knew only French, Italian, or German. England was thus more heavily handicapped than the representatives of the other Powers, and the Albanians asked with wonder: "Are there, then, no schools in England?" And, in general, Scutari's high idea of European civilization shrivelled and shrank.
By the end of September the conduct of the Serbs in the Dibra district was so bad that the maddened populace, profiting by a moment when the garrison was reduced, revolted, drove out the Serbs and retook Ochrida, where they were welcomed by both Bulgars and Albanians. As I wrote at the time: "It is criminal of the Powers to delay the frontier commissions. Both Serb and Montenegrin are working to clear off the Albanians from the debatable districts so as to show a Slav majority to the Commission." The ill-timed revolt gave them a chance of doing this. The Serbs fell on the Gostivar district, burning the villages with petroleum, and throwing such people as could not escape, back into the flames with their bayonets. An urgent appeal for bandages and medicaments came from Elbasan, into which refugees were pouring. Our naval force was not allowed to supply any, but I begged two cases of stores from the Italian consulate and started across country to Elbasan to the horror of the International control, who had the idea that travelling in Albania was dangerous. As I soon got beyond their zone they could not interfere. At Tirana and at Elbasan I found thousands of destitute creatures pouring in, footsore and exhausted. Their accounts of Serb brutality up-country was amply confirmed by a letter of a Serb in the Radnitchke Novina (see Carnegie Report): "My dear friend," writes a Serb soldier, "appalling things are going on. I am terrified of them. . . . I dare not tell you morer but I may say Ljuma (an Albanian tribe) no longer exists. There is nothing but corpses and ashes." A Franciscan, who went there, told me of the bodies of the poor little bayoneted babies. "There are villages of 100, 150, 200 houses where there is literally not a single man. We collect them in parties of forty to fifty and bayonet them to the last one," The paper says it cannot publish the details, "they are too heart-rending."
Nothing could make the luckless refugees believe that the Powers had really given them to the Serbs. They asked piteously when the Prince was coming to drive the Serbs out. And still the Powers did nothing. Some Bulgars among the refugees told that life under the Serbs was impossible. The only time they had been free from persecution was when the Serb army was busy fighting the Bulgar army.
It was feared the Serbs would descend on Elbasan, and I carried away a whole mule-load of valuables to save them from being pillaged, and rode with it across country without an escort or weapon. I learnt from the refugees that twenty-six villages had been wholly or partially burnt and pillaged by the Serbs. Few of the refugees had any weapons. I reported all this in vain in Scutari. Not a Power would move. The Serbs, grown impudent, then entered strictly Albanian territory in defiance of the International forces, and camped in Mirdita while the Montenegrins devastated the Gashi and Krasnichi tribes.
At last the Commission for delimiting the northern frontier started. The Russian, troubled doubtless by a guilty conscience, had feared to start without a strong military escort, and lack of forage made this impossible. Hence much delay. Our military attache from Rome represented England, but it was reported that France and Russia were out to grab all they could for the Serbs, regardless of the nationality of the population, and were furious whenever he protested, for, as England belonged to the Entente, they considered it his duty to support them on every point, regardless of fact and justice.