The Land of the Black Mountain: The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro

by Reginald Wyon; Gerald Prance

The result of this campaign was that Prince Nicolas found his little kingdom increased from an area of 2,580 square kilometres, containing a population of 178,000 inhabitants, to over 9,000 square kilometres and a population of at least 240,000. In the last twenty-five years it has increased to quite another 100,000 inhabitants.

War has never again seriously threatened Montenegro, and Prince Nicolas has been enabled to devote all his energies to the improvement of the land.

There is now no district, however wild and cut off it may be, without its school, attendance at which is purely voluntary. Right well have the people availed themselves of this chance of education, and a sliding scale of school fees permits even the poorest peasant to send his son as well as his more wealthy brother.

The teachers have a seminary at Cetinje, which they must first attend, and a gymnasium on the German and Austrian system can be visited, for those boys who wish to extend their education to an European standard. The same boys usually visit some Russian University, occasionally Vienna or Belgrade, and return to their native land as doctors, engineers, or lawyers, and supply the learned professions.

At Cetinje there is a further High School for Girls, founded by the Empress Marie of Russia in 1869.

As the older men have not enjoyed in their youth the advantages of an education which is now placed within the reach of all, lecturers are sent round the country, and on Sundays, in wild and cut-off districts, a man can be seen lecturing to a group of rough mountaineers who are listening intently. These Government lecturers teach the shepherds how to safeguard their sheep and cattle from disease; the lowland peasants are initiated into the mysteries of vine-growing (every Montenegrin family must plant a vine and attend to it) and tobacco-planting, and general information is given to all.

The Army has been thoroughly reorganised, and is now, thanks to the gift of the Czar, armed with the most modern magazine rifle and officered by men who undergo a training in the armies of Russia, Italy, or France.

The army system is of the simplest. The actual standing army consists of one battalion and a force of artillery, but during the year 4,000 men pass through its ranks and receive a most efficient training. The men return to their homes at the end of four months' training, but drill weekly continues, on Sundays, till the age limit of sixty is reached, when their arms have to be returned to the Government, who again serve them out to the next recruit. Thus the recruit comes equipped for his four months' training, and takes his arms home with him at the conclusion, and is responsible for their good condition. Each man receives a certain number of cartridges, for which he must always be able to account, so that every able-bodied man is an efficient and well-armed soldier capable of taking the field at any moment.

The smartest men become non-commissioned officers, and carry the insignia of their rank on their caps back to private life, where they become again the instructors of the local militia companies. There are two classes of commissioned officers—the officer of the standing army, trained in a Continental army, and who wears a distinctive uniform, and at least one of these is detailed for service in all the militia centres; and the militia officer, who receives his training with the standing battalion or batteries.

Thus at a preconcerted signal, by trumpet and bonfires at night, and in some districts by a salvo of rifles, the whole Montenegrin Army can be mobilised at any given spot within the time that the furthest detachment can travel to the place of rendezvous. An example of the rapidity and ease of this mobilisation was once given to the late Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, at Cetinje, when an army, drawn from every part of the country, equipped and ready for the field, was assembled within thirty-six hours of the first alarm. There is no commissariat, for each soldier supplies his own food, or rather his wife will keep him supplied in a lengthy campaign; no cavalry, for they are useless; and no heavy artillery.