SERBIA IN ARMS.
Delivered before the English Soldiers.
I propose to-night, gentlemen, to describe to you Serbia, my native country, my dream of the past, my dream of the future, and one of your Allies, loyal and faithful in life and death. I will try, of course, to give you only some glances at and slight insight into what Serbia has represented with her soul, her efforts, ideals and hopes. The time is short, yea, our time to-day is more empty than the events which surprise us every day, every night, and overwhelm us like an avalanche of snow and ice from the Alps. How poor and insufficient is our human language to-day, even the language of the most eloquent mortals from this island like Burke, Macaulay and Carlyle, to describe the events which our eyes are seeing and our ears listening to at the present moment! Do not expect from me an equivalent description of Serbia, which has been one of the greatest factors in this world-war during many months, and which has
disturbed your hearts for so long and attracted thousands of your sons and friends over the seas, to take the sword from Serbia's mangled hands and continue the struggle for the same cause for which she fought until death. All that I can tell you consists in some poor instances and remembrances which will be sufficient to show you that Serbia has been worthy to live and to be your ally, and consequently that she is worthy of your great sympathy with her and of your helping her resurrection.
Serbia has been at war since 1912.
IN AUTUMN 1912
King Peter of Serbia consecrated his church of white marble, built in Topola, the birthplace of his grandfather, Karageorge, the protagonist of Balkan liberation. On the same hill, on which Karageorge took the resolution to begin one of the greatest things that ever happened on the troublesome Balkan soil, on the hill of Oplenaz, Karageorge's grandson, King Peter, erected a beautiful church and then declared war on Turkey. It was one of many wars that we had with Turkey, one of many—known and unknown to you—during five hundred years. We have had our old accounts with the Turks. We despised them as the slaves will despise their lords, and they despised us as the lords will despise
their slaves. Yet we respected their virtues, and they recognised some of ours. With the sword they conquered our country, and we knew that only with the sword we could reconquer it from them. Our Christian drama with the Turks in the Balkans began with blood, and we all believed it must finish with blood. In our bloody conflict with the Turks we, the Christians, lost three kings—one of them was King Constantine of Byzantium, and two were the Serbian kings, Vukashin and Lazare—during a period of seventeen years. As well as Serbia and Greece, Roumania also offered great resistance to the Turks. It is a historic fact, that after the decisive Balkan battle on the field of Kossovo, the Roumanians also fought against the Turks. In the battle of Rovina between the Turks and Roumanians, our epic Serbian hero, Marko Kralevich, the last king of Macedonia, called Marko of Prilep, also participated, and was killed there. He was the third Serbian king killed in the defence of Christian freedom in the Balkans. That was the time when the Albanians, too, showed their virtues more than ever before. Under Skender-beg, the prince from Croya, they resisted the Mussulmans very bravely. But they fell into slavery in the same way as Serbia, Greece, Roumania and Croatia. The only country in the Balkans which surrendered without
any resistance was Bulgaria. The only country in the Balkans that never was conquered by the Turks was Montenegro. Poor Montenegro, a skeleton of rocky mountains, has shown during five hundred years more heroic beauty and idealistic enthusiasm than many great empires in Asiatic and European history, which fought their selfish battles for power and comfort, and have been respected and adored merely because of their numbers and dimensions.
Now, in the year of our Lord, 1912, two Serbian kingdoms, Serbia and Montenegro, with two other Christian kingdoms, Greece and Bulgaria, declared war on the Turks. The Roumanians were with their sympathies on the side of the Christian allies. The Albanians, degenerate and disorganised, very different from Skenderbeg's contemporaries, standing now under the influence of Austria, were pro-Turks and against the Christian warriors.